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A conversation with Brian Zachman, President of Global Risk Management Bunge Limited (NYSE: BG)

The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of Brian Zachman and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Bunge Ltd.

Good morning Brian. My first question is, how did you start in the business?

I am from St. Michael, a small town in Minnesota, just northwest of the Twin Cities. My family was in the dairy farming business, but it was never really my hope to have a career in the family business. My choice of university, Minnesota-Duluth, even came with an added bonus: it was too far from the farm for my dad to call at 3pm and ask for a hand milking the cows at 5 pm!

I was interested in markets and studied Economics and Math in college before applying to Cargill, but for a position in their financial markets department. Cargill likely saw the farming background and instead offered me a merchant trainee job in West Fargo, North Dakota.

What happened to the family farm? Is it still going?

My parents sold the milking cows and the young stock in the early 1990s, when Mom and Dad reached retirement age and when no obvious succession plan emerged for the farm—all of my five siblings also chose professions other than farming. Dad still lives on the farm, although suburban development and the resulting increase in land values means less and less of the land is directed to agricultural uses. It’s a tale as old as time, a pattern likely to continue throughout rural America.

Before joining Bunge you worked briefly for a hedge fund. What was it like?

I really enjoyed the experience. The ‘reason for being’ is very clear in a fund: it’s about delivering results, and that clarity has a way of creating the right kind of focus. Also, maybe contrary to popular perceptions, my experience is that hedge funds are very disciplined organizations. There’s a real recognition that outcomes are uncertain and that one doesn’t know anything with certainty, so a big part of the business revolves around managing risk.

My primary frustration in the managed money space was being limited to the Exchange-traded instruments and not being able to take positions in the underlying physical commodities (the basis) or in any other part of the value chain. The analytical process is the same in both settings—oftentimes at the fund we had very solid opinions about value migration in parts of the chain but with no way to express our opinion in those markets.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?

I am optimistic. Bunge is a global player with a global asset base. We physically originate 70 million tonnes of grains and oilseeds each year and have an end-to-end presence in the supply chain; that’s an inherently strong structural position, which is not easy to replicate.

From the standpoint of price risk management, our network also provides us with a lot of proprietary information that helps us optimize our value chains. In a way, our asset base is a call option on volatility in the supply chain.

What advice would you give to a young person starting a career in commodities trading?

My first piece of advice would be to remain intellectually curious. It seems to me that some of the most successful people in the business always ask the next question, not in the interest of information overload, but in the interest of drawing connections between cause and effect in the markets: What’s driving this? Why is this happening? Does it have any knock-on effects? What does it mean?

Second, be humble. If you don’t already possess humility, the market will eventually provide it to you—but it’s almost always more expensive that way!

Accept that you give something of yourself when you put on a position; it exposes your vulnerability to failure. In reality, markets can reward you even when your underlying logic was flawed, and a bet can go badly even when your underlying logic was sound.

Some of the best advice I received went something like “be less concerned about defending your logic and ‘being right,’ because you don’t have all the facts; be more concerned about the outcome and managing your capital.” When it’s framed that way you realize a bad bet isn’t an indictment on your intelligence.

Third, “never say never.” You can say that there’s a low probability of something happening, but you shouldn’t say it will “never” happen. We’ve all seen too many things happen that we thought would never happen. The options markets have this pretty well figured out.

Fourth, find what works for you and develop your own style. At the same time, though, seek the counsel of people that you trust, who can ground you in moments of emotion and the extremes, and who can help you put things in perspective.

Finally, appreciate the place that commodities have in the world…we are in a relevant business with great purpose!

Thank you Brian for your time!

© Commodity Conversations ®

This is a brief extract of a conversation from my upcoming book to be published in November.

A conversation with Ivo Sarjanovic

Could you please tell me a little about career?

I joined Cargill in July 1989, and after working in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, I was transferred to Geneva in 1993 as a wheat trader. In late 1994 Cargill asked me to join the soybean desk. I started as a junior trader and worked my way up to become head of the desk, a position I kept from 2001 to 2011.

I was in charge of Cargill’s worldwide activities in soybeans, including the coordination of crushing activities. It was a role that combined international trading with the strategic side of the business, so it was super interesting. I loved it!

So you were head of the bean desk through the whole of the super cycle?

I first visited China in 1997 at a time when they were buying almost no beans at all. Twenty years later they are importing 85 to 90 million tonnes each year, which is roughly 60 percent of the world total.

This created tremendous opportunities for the desk. I was lucky to be there at that time—and to have had the right experience and the right team to be able to enjoy it. For me it was like playing football for Barcelona in La Liga.

What was Cargill’s share of the world soybean trade at that time?

We had maybe 15 percent. The business was extremely competitive, but not only among the big trading houses. Chinese companies soon started to buy soybeans directly from the origins and trade them to destination.

In 2011 you moved within Cargill from beans to sugar. What prompted that move?

I had been in soybeans for almost 20 years, and I wanted a change. I also wanted to have a position that was more managerial, more asset-based and less trading-orientated. Becoming head of Cargill’s Sugar Division was a perfect opportunity for me. I jumped at the chance.

What are the main differences between the sugar and the soybean markets?

The biggest difference is the delivery mechanism. Sugar trading revolves around the delivery process against the futures market, especially the optionality that you have between the different origins.

What was a surprise was that physical margins were even worse in sugar than they were in beans. Traders are even more willing to discount physical prices to put on a short sales book to end destination.

After a few years of running Cargill’s Sugar Division you merged it into Alvean, a joint venture with Copersucar.

Alvean was probably the best idea I have ever had professionally, combining what at that time were the two biggest traders in a market that was desperate for consolidation. Cargill had the global trading expertise while Copersucar had the origination infrastructure in Brazil. The combination was very strong.

Moving on to your current position, you now act as an advisor to trading companies on risk management.

Risk management is a journey. We can only try for continual incremental improvements. Also, I don’t think there is a definitive way to manage risk; different companies have different methods.

Thirty years ago we managed risk in terms of the size of the position measured in tonnes. We then moved on to looking at the risk in monetary terms, the value. We then began to incorporate tools that were developed by the financial industry such as ‘Daily Value at Risk or DVAR”, “Drawdowns” and ‘Stress’. We combine all these tools into what we call a ‘Dashboard’ and then we try to find a balance, a way to combine each of the various legs such as flat price, spreads, premiums and freight positions within limits.

It was challenging at the beginning, but most people now realise that you can’t trade if you don’t use those tools. Without them you may overtrade relative to your equity and run the risk of ‘blowing up’.

In addition to my advisory work I give courses on agricultural commodities at the Masters level at the University of Geneva, as well as at the Universities of Buenos Aires and Rosario in Argentina. I love teaching young people about our business, and sharing my enthusiasm for the business with them.

Thank you Ivo for your time and input!

© Commodity Conversations ®

This is a short extract of a conversation that will be published in full in my new book due out in November.

A conversation with Riccardo and Emanuele Ravano, respectively President and CEO of IFCHOR

IFCHOR is an international shipbroking company based in Lausanne, Switzerland with a network of 12 offices in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and the USA. I asked Riccardo, the founder of the company, how it had all begun.

I come from a ship owning family. I started in the shipping business in 1964 at the age of 20, in Genoa, Italy. In the 1970s, politics in Italy began to get really bad, even dangerous. Many of my clients began to move abroad, and in 1976 I decided to follow them. I looked originally at Monaco and then at Geneva. I had a friend who told me that there was a one-room office for rent in his building in Lausanne. I took it.

I started on my own at first with a secretary—who by the way is still with the company 42 years later! Over the years we expanded from one room to two floors…but we remained in the same building!

And Manu, when did you join?

Ours is a family business, so I joined when I was born! I officially started working in 2002, just before the freight super-cycle, which lasted about five years between 2003 and 2008.

How big is the company today?

Today we are about 180 people around the world. I would say we do between 3,000 and 4,000 transactions a year throughout our various offices and segments. We have never calculated the amount of tonnes that equates to, but perhaps we should. It could be good marketing!

Do the big trade houses each have a shipping department?

All of them do. Over the years they have developed bigger and bigger departments. Forty years ago they might have had one guy chartering vessels on a voyage basis, but now they all have separate departments with P&Ls that can reach tens of millions of dollars.

Manu, that’s one big change in the past 40 years. Are there others?

The most important change in the past 40 years has been the development of the market in Forward Freight Agreements, FFAs. These now trade every day in thousands of lots, allowing operators to hedge their freight needs. The FFA market has traditionally been an OTC (Over The Counter) market, where counterparties enter into direct agreements with each other. It is still an OTC market, but since the crash of 2008 all FFAs are cleared either in London or Singapore.

FFAs are closely linked to the physical shipping business. It is the physical shipping market that determines the FFA prices, not the other way around.

Any other changes?

Shipping transports 90 percent of the goods in the world. At the same time, the sector burns only 7 percent of global oil consumption. Shipping globally contributes only 3 percent of the GHG emissions in the world.

Recently, the IMO took a major step to implement—as of January 2020—new regulations to ensure a targeted 20 to 30 percent reduction in GHG emissions, to be achieved principally through the use of low sulphur fuel.

Could LNG be used as an alternative low emission fuel?

There is a currently lot of discussion around LNG fuelled ships, but for the moment the technology is pricey and it is difficult to justify economically. Some charterers may be willing to pay more to charter LNG fuelled ships for environmental reasons, but trading margins are currently so thin that it is unlikely that trading companies could do so and remain competitive. There is also a question of LNG supply at the ports. It is not easy to organize globally. There is a risk of having LNG fuelled ships being stranded.

So how could the industry reduce emissions further?

I think it will be a contribution of many things. There might be some sails that work. There might be some solar power as well. There might be some electric contribution to the engine. It will be an evolution that will take another 10 to15 years before we reach a point of having the right mixture of technology.

What’s the average lifespan of a ship?

That is another thing that has changed significantly over the past 40 years. When my father started in the business, the average lifespan of a cargo vessel was 25-30 years. Today, it is more like 15 years, especially when you look at all the new regulations coming.

Remember though, that some ships are well maintained and safe for carrying grain, even at 25 years old. Others are less well maintained and are a problem at 12 years old. We know which ships are well maintained, and which ones aren’t.

Where is innovation likely to come from in the future in the industry?

Shipping is facing the same challenges as those faced by commodities. Technology has made communication fast and seamless in both chartering and trading. This has led to thinner margins. As a result, traders are seeking economies of scale and shipping is evolving with bigger and bigger ships. Port infrastructure is also adapting to accommodate these bigger ships.

I wouldn’t say it’s a challenge. It’s a reality. We have to adapt to a world that is faster and bigger.

Thank you Riccardo and Emanuele for your time and input.

© Commodity Conversations ®

This is a short extract of the conversation that will be published this autumn in my new book on the grain business.