Marex is pleased to announce that it has opened an office in Minneapolis. The office will serve as a central hub for commodity risk management, with major agricultural companies and large commodity risk managers located in the region. As part of the move, Marex has tapped long-time agricultural industry veterans Dan Hofstad and Charlie Fee to co-head the office and oversee further growth of its over-the-counter (OTC) agricultural offering in the U.S.
Hofstad and Fee have a combined 35 years of experience in the industry, including many years at Cargill Risk Management, where Fee served as Managing Director. They report to Kirk Bonniwell, Head of Agricultural OTC Sales for Marex North America.
The new office will serve as a launch pad for further expansion of the firm’s listed and OTC offerings, including structured products. It will be the hub from which Marex Solutions, the OTC arm of the company, will introduce a new North American OTC dairy business, led by Hofstad, as a complement to the firm’s existing exchange-traded dairy products business.
Fee will bring additional depth to Marex’s well-established grain origination franchise with expertise on the consumer side of the market, and both Hofstad and Fee will grow the team and build on the firm’s reach in the soft commodities, protein and energy industries.
Ram Vittal, Chief Executive Officer of Marex North America, said: “We’re delighted to expand our business with another on-the-ground presence that puts us close to our clients as they navigate their risk management challenges. We continue to identify new opportunities to grow our franchise in North America and leverage the global breadth of products and services that Marex has to offer.”
Bonniwell said: “In addition to their product expertise, Dan and Charlie bring outstanding experience to our team, great insights into the talent and relevant businesses in the area and an appreciation for our focus on high-touch service and lasting client relationships. We look forward to building on the team in the region under their leadership and addressing the growing demand for these customized solutions.”
With 16 years of experience in commodity risk management and trading, Hofstad has developed and implemented exchange-based and OTC hedging strategies in agricultural, dairy soft, energy and foreign exchange (FX) markets. He previously served as Managing Director, North America for Amius Limited, where he built out the OTC risk management business across commodity markets and industries. He spent nearly five years at Cargill Risk Management in several roles, including Senior Director and Global Dairy Manager. Previously, he was at INTL FCStone (now StoneX) in London, promoting hedging practices in Eastern Europe and Black Sea markets for large export and import clients.
Fee served most recently as Managing Director for Amius since October 2019, after spending 16 years at Cargill. He was Managing Director, Asia Pacific for Cargill Risk Management from 2016 to 2019 after filling other roles, including Senior Marketer for OTC pricing solutions in agricultural commodity hedging, National Sales Account Manager and Commodity Merchant.
Marex has undertaken a series of strategic moves in the commodity space in the past six months, including the expansion into Australia with the opening of a Sydney office and the acquisitions of Volcap Trading, which established an award-winning soft commodity and bespoke structured products business operating out of London and Paris, and Arfinco S.A., one of Europe’s leading agricultural brokers.
