The British shipbroker Clarksons is expanding its involvement in the “physical commodities” market and acquiring the US-based Link Group.
The companies Link Crude Resources, Link Data Services and Link Futures will be taken over, as Clarksons has now announced. The official reason: Link Group is “the market-leading North American physical crude oil and oil derivatives broker and a leading data provider”. This acquisition is an important step in Clarksons’ strategy to strengthen and expand its capabilities in physical commodities, derivatives and data”. It also serves to expand its presence in North and South America and to deploy capital, the statement added.
The British company is paying $80 million for the takeover “from existing liquid funds”. Link Group is described as a leading broker in the WTI market in Texas and the US Gulf Coast and is active in physical and derivatives trading. Activities include the settlement of physical commodity and derivative contracts and support for the implementation of related hedging transactions in real time. “With WTI now part of the Brent price complex, market participants are increasingly using the CME HTT (WTI Gulf Coast) contract to hedge the WTI price and freight risk,” writes Clarksons.
As Link is looking to expand its business into European markets, the partners see a good complement to Clarksons’ futures business. The British company also wants to benefit from a separate data and analysis business.
Andi Case, CEO of Clarksons, said: “This acquisition underlines our commitment to investing in freight and its transportation routes and expanding our presence in the Americas. Link’s team is highly skilled and well respected.”
