Barclays Creates Shipping Arm to Support Oil Deals

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Aug 2009

Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank, said on Thursday it has created a shipping division called Pendle to support its physical oil trading operations. An industry source said Pendle opened in April and is a four-man team.
The UK bank confirmed it had created the division but declined to give further details.
The industry source said the new team was active in the oil products market, shipping middle distillates such as gas oil.
"They already have three MRs (medium range tankers) and are looking for more," said a freight trader.
The decision to build a freight desk coincides with the bank's expansion of its commodities team in a bid to compete more effectively with rivals Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Barclays has said it plans to increase the number of staff in commodities by over 30 percent to 320 by the end of this fiscal year.

Source: Reuters