Raw materials: how traders based in Switzerland benefit from war

According to the Public Eye NGO, the benefits of fossil and agricultural raw material negotiators have exploded since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.

by Serge Enderlin (Geneva, Correspondence) ( With AP)

War profiteer? Trading Trading Trafigura achieved $ 7 billion (6.45 billion euros) in profit during its 2022 financial year, twice as much as its previous record, in 2021. COVVI-19, War in Ukraine… plus the planet accuse the blow, the more the traders (the negotiators) collect.

A paradox that hardly moves the Australian Jeremy Weir, boss, since 2014, of this company which is one of the main brokers and charters of black gold on the planet, whose market activities are located in Geneva . “We have once again managed master of master the extreme volatility of the markets on a wide range of raw materials, and recorded exceptional results regardless of market conditions,” he said.

In the less managerial language of the Swiss NGO Public Eye, which published, Thursday, January 19, a report on the ultra-lucrative business trading in Switzerland, the report does not have the same tone. “While the food and energy security of millions of people is seriously threatened in the world due to the increase in food and raw material prices, the traders record record profits by taking advantage of the markets on the markets,” said The NGO.

Flow growth

Like its competitor Trafigura, the Vitol group, world number one in oil trading, has also already pierced its own ceiling, with 4.5 billion dollars of profit over the first six months of 2022, against 4.2 Billion over the twelve months of 2021. The company Gunvor announces, for the first half of 2022, profits multiplied by four compared to those of the first semester 2021.

It was co -founded by the Russian oligarch Gennadi Timtchenko, a relative of Vladimir Putin who appears on all the lists of Western sanctions and has long benefited the good Geneva society from its generosity through Neva, the philanthropic foundation of his wife. The man had officially sold his shares in Gunvor to his Swedish business partner, Torbjörn Törnqvist, shortly after the annexation of Crimea by Russia, in spring 2014.

A raw material giant, however, crushes all the others: Glencore (oil, gas, coal, minerals, metals, etc.). According to the Financial Times, the group installed in Baar, under the Clément tax climate of the German micro-canton of Zug (Central Switzerland), is “one of the greatest winners of the disturbances caused by the war in Ukraine on the markets raw material “. He saw his profits grow by 846 % in the first half of 2022 in twelve months, with 12 billion dollars.

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/Media reports cited above.