Three senior grain traders at Archer Daniels Midland Co have left the company’s China team since the start of the year, people familiar with the matter said, the latest in a series of high-profile exits as the global agricultural merchant struggles with a supply glut and weak prices.
Shen Ben and Wang Shaojun, who traded soymeal, left the company’s Shanghai office last week, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Their future plans are not known.
Meanwhile wheat trader Cui Xiangdong left the company in January to join Australian agribusiness Graincorp’s China business, according to two people familiar with the matter. Graincorp’s media relations director Angus Trigg confirmed the appointment.
The people with knowledge of the departures declined to be identified because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.
The moves echo the recent departures of the chief executive of ADM’s trading arm in Asia, Frederik Groth, and the firm’s head of corn trading Victor Petzold.
The changes come after a volatile year for global commodity traders, with bumper crops in major growing nations like the United States depressing prices and intensifying competition among merchants.
An ADM spokeswoman, Jackie Anderson, said the firm does not comment on personnel matters.
By Dominique Patton
Source: Reuters
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