Is Glencore a closed shop?
This won't apply if you're Tony Haywood, but if you're a mere mortal, maybe Glencore's a little bit difficult to get into.
When Glencore issued details of its flotation today, it also revealed that:
Glencore senior management has more than 200 years aggregate experience working together, yet an average age of just 46.
Combined with the fact that several of Glencore's new non executive directors have close links to the firm and one of them is a former school chum of CEO Ivan Glasenberg, this leads us to conclude that Glencore is populated by people who know each other very well - at the senior end at least.
This is not to say that Glencore doesn't hire senior traders externally. Only the other month it recruited someone from BarCap for example, and one London headhunter insists that Glencore does hire outsiders.
On the other hand, however, Swiss headhunters say Glencore's hiring is mostly at graduate level and most graduate hires stick around.
If so, this is a shame: Glencore also revealed today that it generates an average return on equity of 38%. Lifelong traders in investment banks could be forgiven for thinking they're in the wrong industry.
