Wednesday's Headlines: Citi beefs up its commodities team, joins industry trend

Investment banks are expanding their commodities trading units, as the world's thirst for raw materials balloons and investors are looking for ways to hedge inflation, according to Businessweek. Citigroup plans to hire 10 people in its 30-strong commodity investment product team over the next two years and launch a commodity trading unit in Shanghai. The bank has two commodities indexes which have attracted more than $1 billion since their introduction.

The article also states that Citi joins JPMorgan Chase, Barclay's and other banks competing to sell products such as indexes to pension funds, endowments and wealthy individuals as investors diversify from stocks and bonds.

Citi hired Martin Lovegrove, an adviser to BP, as chairman of its global energy business to start in July, and next month Edward Morse will begin in the role of global head of commodities research, leaving a similar role at Credit Suisse. Rob Biro joined the bank last year in Singapore from Goldman Sachs Group to head global oil trading.

Other news:

Nasdaq's 100 Index will conduct a special rebalance on May 2, forcing traders to scurry to keep up. [Investment News]

Commodity giant Louis Dreyfus is considering a stock market listing, a merger or bringing in a private investor to fund future projects. [NY Times]

KKR has teamed up with Yageo's chairman in a $1.6 billion bid to take the company private. [Financial Times]

Massachusetts's state pension fund will now invest directly in hedge funds instead of through intermediary funds. [Boston Globe]

Wall Street lobbied the Treasury on Dodd-Frank rules. [DealBook]