Banks Beef Up Asian Trading Teams

摘要

A year on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the dizzying fall in crude prices, international investment banks are beefing up their Asian commodity trading operations in a move that points to confidence in the outlook for oil prices and in the broader economic growth prospects of the Asia-Pacific region (PIW Sep.22'08,p1). JP Morgan, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Bank of America and Barclays Capital are all expanding their Asian commodity teams, with a particular focus on energy. Bank of America recently added five executives to its Asian commodities desk, whose head, Diego Parrilla, thinks oil prices are heading back to and beyond the peaks reached in 2008. "We can reach that," Parrilla told PIW. "In the next three to five years, I think you can trade beyond the previous highs." The bulk of the expanded commodity divisions in Asia will focus on risk management and institutional investment - the paper and financing side of the business, rather than physical trading, which is dominated in the banking world by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. While Citigroup, JP Morgan and Bank of America all plan to strengthen their presence in physical commodity trading, most of the growth is expected in deals structured around exchange-traded future contracts and over-the-counter swaps for clients.