Mercuria Said to Hire Former Trafigura Executive Tristan Busch
Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) — Tristan Busch, the former head of global refined metals at Trafigura Beheer BV, is joining Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Busch will be based at Mercuria’s head office in Geneva and will run the fast-growing trading firm’s refined metals and concentrates business, the person said.
Seeking to join the top sphere of independent trading firms, Mercuria has rapidly expanded since being founded by two former Goldman Sachs traders a decade ago. Mercuria agreed in March to buy JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s physical-commodity business for $3.5 billion.
Busch, who left Trafigura in February, will report to Magid Shenouda, Mercuria’s global head of trading and a former Goldman Sachs partner who joined the company in May.
As Busch joins Mercuria’s workforce of about 1,200 people, Michael Harrison, a copper trader based in London, has left the company, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the information hasn’t been made public. Harrison joined Mercuria in March 2013 and was previously a physical copper trader at Standard Bank Plc.
Mercuria offered jobs to about 200 people or about half of JPMorgan’s physical commodity business, a person familiar with the matter said in May.
To contact the reporters on this story: Andy Hoffman in Geneva at ahoffman31@bloomberg.net; Agnieszka Troszkiewicz in London at atroszkiewic@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Timothy Coulter at tcoulter@bloomberg.net Alex Devine, Dylan Griffiths
