The head of Goldman Sachs’ commodities trading business — the largest of any Wall Street bank — is leaving.
Greg Agran “has decided to retire from the firm at the end of November,” the bank said in a memo on Friday. A partner, he has been with the bank for 26 years.
His departure comes after Goldman suffered a dismal first half of the year in commodities, including its worst quarter ever in the second quarter. Low volatility has dampened customer demand to enter into hedging deals and left hedge funds with few opportunities to trade with banks.
Goldman also lost more than $100m trading natural gas in the Marcellus shale market of Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to an earlier Wall Street Journal report.
It is not alone in enduring poor returns from commodities trading. The world’s top 12 investment banks recorded their lowest half-yearly revenues in the sector since at least 2006, according to Coalition, a research company.
But Goldman was singular in standing by its storied commodities franchise, known as J Aron, as other banks scaled down in recent years. It expanded aggressively as a natural gas trader in North America, a move in which Mr Agran played “a significant role,” the memo said.
The bank is scheduled to discuss the direction of the fixed income and commodities business at an investor conference on Tuesday.
After Mr Agran’s departure, Jeremy Taylor and Ed Emerson will serve as co-heads of global commodities trading. They will work closely with Isabelle Ealet, a global co-head of Goldman’s securities division who formerly oversaw the commodities division, a person familiar with the matter said.
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