Lawrence GashA rogue trader at Mitsubishi in Singapore lost $320m by placing failed bets on the oil price, the Financial Times reports.
Mitsubishi is Japan’s largest trading house, it revealed that one of its employees was taking unauthorised derivatives positions since January and suffered significant losses when the oil price fell this Summer.
The employee was hired by subsidiary Petro-Diamond Singapore (PDS), Mitsubishi stated:
With $5bn in net profits last year, a $320m loss will not be an existential threat to Mitsubishi, such as the scandal that brought down Barings Bank in the 1990s.
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Sadly for the trader, his positions were all closed in Mid-August when Brent crude was below $60 a barrel. He consequently missed out on the September oil spike after the attack on Saudi Aramco and the disruption of half of Saudi Arabia’s export capacity.
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