(Reuters) — Three senior staff of the CME Group in Asia have resigned since the start of the month, even as the exchange said on Wednesday it remained committed to its expansion plans in the region.
The three — Asia managing director C. F. Wong, head of energy George Ng and associate director Sam Ho — are leaving for personal reasons, three industry sources told Reuters.
Jeremy Hughes, spokesman for the CME Group, which owns the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) where the benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is traded, confirmed the three resignations.
"The CME Group remains committed to our clients in Asia, and growing our business in the region continues to be a large part of our growth strategy," he said.
"Our Singapore office is growing to about 30 employees, and we remain very much committed to serving our clients in the region and to growing our business throughout Asia."
In the past two years, the CME Group has grown both trading and clearing volumes on its Globex and Clearport platforms respectively during Asian trading hours, particularly after its acquisition of the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2008. For example, clearing volumes for oil more than doubled during Asian hours.
The growth, in part, was boosted by the global financial crisis in the second half of 2008 when the Asian oil trading community, concerned by counterparty risks following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, moved away from bilateral trades into clearing.
The spokesman said Wong, who submitted his resignation last week, will be assisting the CME Group to transition his duties over the next several months.
Ho resigned early this month and is serving gardening leave, while Ng quit last week and is serving notice.
The CME Group has grown from five employees about two years ago to the current 30 and plans to expand further, the sources said.
The departures are expected to disrupt those plans in the short term but all three headcounts are expected to be replaced eventually, the sources added.
No comments:
Post a Comment