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CFO Christophe Salmon and CEO Jose Maria Larocca are set to leave Trafigura in the commodities trader's second leadership change in seven months.
The departures come after a period of record performance for the privately held business, which generated profits of $7.4 billion in 2023 and agreed to pay a record dividend of $5.9 billion to its 1,200 employees who own the company.
Salmon, who joined Trafigura in 2012 and served as CFO for nearly 10 years, will retire in June and will be replaced by the company's Asia CFO Stefan Jansma, the company said on Friday.
Larocca joined Trafigura in 1994, a year after its founding, and is the longest-serving employee among the current management. He was appointed to the leadership team as Head of the Oil and Petroleum Products Division in 2007.
Trafigura last week pleaded guilty to corruption charges brought by the US Department of Justice related to paying bribes in Brazil to secure “improper advantages” in oil contracts between 2003 and 2014.
Trafigura said that “there is no connection between the decision to retire by any of the senior executives and any legal matter, including the recent decision taken by the former parent company with the Ministry of Justice.”
Larocca, who while at Trafigura has represented Argentina in show jumping at all four Olympic Games since 2008, will retire from the company at the end of September.
CEO Jeremy Weir, who joined the leadership team in 2007 at the same time as Larocca, said the Argentine executive had been instrumental in Trafigura's transformation into a global commodities giant over the past 30 years. “Jose has played a pivotal role in driving Trafigura’s growth and success from the company’s early days until today,” he said.
New CFO Jansma joined Trafigura in 2013 as Head of Structured and Commercial Finance, and previously held positions at Rabobank and Fortis Bank.
These changes represent a continuation of the group's leadership overhaul, which began in September 2023 when Trafigura restructured its management ahead of the exit of long-time chief operating officer Mike Wainwright, who retired last month.
After the death of Trafigura's founder, Claude Dauphin, in 2015, Weir, Wainwright and Larocca ran the company as part of an 11-person management team, which was reduced to eight people in September.
Wainwright and Trafigura have since been indicted by Swiss federal prosecutors on charges of bribing foreign officials in Angola between 2009 and 2011. Trafigura said in December that Wainwright “rejects the charges” and that the company “will defend itself” in court.
Since becoming CEO in 2014 and CEO four years later, Weir has sought to improve compliance and make the company's once secretive business operations more transparent. In 2015, he became the first Trafigura CEO to speak publicly. Although the company is still privately owned, it now publishes extensive annual accounts.
In response to the plea agreement reached with the US Department of Justice last week, Ware said, “These historical events do not reflect Trafigura's values nor the behavior we expect from every employee.”
Weir also oversaw a period of rapid growth for the company, resulting in Trafigura Group's shares doubling in the past three years to $16.5 billion.
In 2023, an average of 5.5 million barrels of oil were traded per day, representing about 5 percent of the global market, and 21 million tons of copper, aluminum and other non-ferrous metals.
