(Bloomberg) -- Oil trader Montfort Group has hired Yannick Luce as chief financial officer, just as the firm seeks to consolidate operations that include storage and refinery assets in Africa and the Middle East.
Luce will be based in Geneva, according to an announcement on Montfort’s LinkedIn page. He worked as CFO for BGN, the trading arm of Turkish chemical company Bayegan, for the past two years. Luce has also held finance roles in energy firms including Socar Trading, a branch of Azerbaijan’s state oil company, and in ABN Amro Bank NV, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Montfort, which was incorporated in 2020, and other trading companies benefited from volatile energy markets earlier this decade. It has snapped up an oil-marketing company in Kenya and an storage terminal in Mozambique. Last year’s purchase of Uniper SE’s refinery in the United Arab Emirates has made the upstart trading house a major supplier of ship fuel in the Middle East.
The company has also started a shipping arm and expanded into metals trading, though it shuttered its agricultural trading desk within the past year. Montfort also has offices in Dubai and Singapore.
Traders’ mega profits are starting to narrow as price swings ease in energy markets. Brent crude fell below $70 a barrel this week for the first time in over two years on demand concerns, while the outlook for next year remains challenging.
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