LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) - Global commodity trading house Gunvor recorded an 85% drop in net profits in 2025 to $104 million, according to financial results released on Tuesday. The sharp drop came
Gunvor's net profits fell sharply in management buyout year
Gunvor's 2025 Financial Performance and Strategic Shifts
By Robert Harvey
2025 Profit Drop and Management Buyout
LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) - Global commodity trading house Gunvor recorded an 85% drop in net profits in 2025 to $104 million, according to financial results released on Tuesday.
The sharp drop came as Gunvor employees staged a management buyout to replace former CEO and co-founder Torbjorn Tornqvist late last year, in a bid to distance the firm from its history of close ties to Russia after the U.S. dubbed it the "Kremlin’s puppet".
Financial Impact of Buyout
The net profit figure of $104 million includes writedowns and other impairments worth a total of $462 million incurred by the new management team, the firm said.
The buyout saw Gunvor valued at around $5 billion, with Tornqvist providing a loan of more than $4 billion to employees to make the deal happen, Reuters reported in February.
Terms and Structure of the Buyout
Tornqvist received $1 billion in upfront payments in the buyout, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, as well as $200 million in assets and the cancellation of approximately $500 million in loans that were "mainly" to him.
The full details of the buyout were not made public, but Gunvor said at the time that the buyout would be funded by a mix of partners' own equity and a vendor loan from Tornqvist.
Market Volatility and Trading Performance
Constructive Volatility Boosts 2026 Start
'CONSTRUCTIVE VOLATILITY' BOOSTS 2026 PERFORMANCE SO FAR
Commodity trading houses including Gunvor grappled with politically driven heightened market volatility last year, adjusting to lower profit margins after the COVID-19 demand recovery and Russia-Ukraine war-associated market dislocations that drove record earnings in 2022-2023.
"Throughout most of 2025, the energy markets remained structurally tight yet politically volatile, whereby trading margins were driven less by fundamental supply and demand imbalances and more by navigating fragmentation, sanctions, and regional dislocations in flows," Gunvor CEO Gary Pedersen said.
2026 Outlook and Competitor Comparison
Pedersen said the company had already made the equivalent of its 2025 gross profit, $1.63 billion, in the first quarter, after what he called a pick-up in "constructive volatility" late last year.
Gunvor's rivals including Trafigura and Glencore also saw lower earnings from energy trading last year. Vitol, the world's largest independent oil trader, does not disclose a net profit figure in its results.
Strategic Pivot to U.S. Market
Post-Buyout Emphasis on U.S. Investments
GUNVOR EMPHASISES PIVOT TO U.S. POST BUYOUT
Pedersen highlighted the company's "particular emphasis on investments and development within the U.S. market" in his statement accompanying the results.
U.S. Contracts and Geopolitical Relations
So far this year, Gunvor has been awarded two contracts to borrow crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of the administration's bid to calm surging prices as a result of the war in Iran, alongside other companies.
Relations with the U.S. were frayed after Gunvor was dubbed the "Kremlin's puppet" by the U.S. Treasury last year, prompting the Switzerland-based trader to withdraw its bid for Russian energy company Lukoil's foreign assets.
Company Background and Recent Performance
The firm was founded in 2000 by Swedish billionaire Tornqvist and Russian oligarch Gennadiy Timchenko, naming the firm after Tornqvist's mother. New CEO Pedersen previously told Reuters that he had no plans to rebrand Gunvor after the buyout.
Gunvor's traded volumes rose to 253 million tons last year from 232 million tons in 2024.
The privately owned firm does not disclose a full suite of financial results, releasing only a limited set of figures.
Group equity was $6.1 billion at the end of the 2025 financial year, from $6.5 billion a year earlier.
(Reporting by Robert Harvey in London; Editing by Joe Bavier and Jan Harvey)
