Moves: Mercuria's chief China concentrates trader leaves in base metal cuts

Mercuria Holdings

03/02/2021 13:18

Feb 3 (Reuters) - Commodity trading giant Mercuria's head of
metal concentrates trading for China is to leave the firm as it
continues to trim its base metals headcount in the world's
biggest metals market.
    Elly Shentu, who has been in the role at Mercuria's Shanghai
office for more than seven years, said she is on gardening leave
-- or not working during her notice period -- until the end of
March before her official departure but declined to comment
further
    The latest cuts to Mercuria's base metals division - which
two sources with knowledge of the matter said also included a
concentrates trading assistant and an operations team member -
come after it let go around 10 Shanghai staff, including metal
and petrochemical traders, in late 2019.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N28U2ZA
    The sources, who declined to be named as they were not
authorised to speak to the media, said it was possible Mercuria
was cutting back to further reduce credit risk. There was a
series of defaults by Asian commodity companies last year.
    Mercuria's Shanghai base metals team is now focusing on
paper trading but still doing some physical deals, they added.
    A Mercuria spokesman declined to comment.
    One of the sources said parts of Mercuria's physical metals
business were still doing very well, while the second said the
company had recently hired metals traders in Singapore.
    Former Rio Tinto  RIO.AX  copper and iron ore manager Tom
Qiu joined Mercuria in Singapore in January as a senior ferrous
and nonferrous trader, his LinkedIn profile shows.

 (Reporting by Tom Daly; additional reporting by Mai Nguyen and
Julia Payne; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
 ((tom.daly@thomsonreuters.com; +86 10 5669 2119;))