Marex Spectron, an essential tech-enabled liquidity hub connecting clients to global energy, commodities and financial markets, has today announced the acquisition of Starsupply, a leading Rotterdam-based broker of physical oil products. This is the latest in a series of acquisitions that has seen Marex expand its presence in specialist commodity markets and confirm its market leadership.
Starsupply is an established execution-only physical oil brokerage firm, covering a wide range of oil products that includes fuel-oil, distillates, naphtha and gasoline. The company name dates back to 2008 and is the result of the merger between Stardust Rotterdam, founded in 1978, and Starsupply Rotterdam, founded in 1993.
With top-tier clients and minimal overlap with existing Marex businesses, Starsupply is an excellent fit with Marex’s current energy franchise that today has a leading share across multiple energy markets with teams based in London, New York, Houston, Stamford Connecticut, Calgary, Oslo, Dublin, Frankfurt, Singapore and now Rotterdam. This acquisition expands Marex’s capabilities in physical markets, which currently include gasoline, fuel oil and shipping franchises.
This move follows other successful transactions completed over the past year that have included, equity derivatives firm XFA in Chicago, recycled metals market-maker Tangent Trading in London, and equity volatility market maker, BIP Asset Management in Paris. Marex has also demonstrated success in growing acquired firms with, for example, Marquee Oil, a fuel oil physical broker which was acquired in December 2019 almost doubling its 2020 revenue under Marex’s stewardship.
Ian Lowitt, CEO of Marex Spectron, commented: “Notwithstanding the market conditions and dislocations caused by the Covid pandemic, acquiring new businesses is very much ‘Business as Usual’ for us. Our core strategy is to diversify our earnings and build customer base by growing out products and geographies in the four specialised value add services we provide to clients. As a physical energy broker, Starsupply further broadens our EU energy presence in physical markets and has natural synergies across both our physical and paper Price Discovery services. I am pleased to welcome the talented Starsupply team and will look to help them realise their growth ambitions, particularly in Asia.”
Symen de Willigen, Managing Director of Starsupply, commented: “We are delighted to be joining Marex’s energy franchise which has a first-class reputation and global coverage. Together, we can continue to build out our coverage and strengthen our foothold in the European physical oil market. There are great opportunities and synergies on both sides, so it is an excellent fit.”
