APAC carbon trading star jumps to London brokerage firm with his team

What’s the most you can lose when an international competitor comes to your back garden and starts tearing up your local market? Your main revenue-generator and quite a lot of your staff, apparently, if you’re Auckland-based Jarden, and your competitor is London-based Marex.

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

Marex has just hired eight people from Jarden in New Zealand and Australia as it builds out its carbon trading business.

The biggest name among the movers is Nigel Brunel, who's been at Jarden since 2007 and was head of commodities there. Sources say he was one of the firm's biggest profit earners, with Brunel "easily the single biggest income generator across all the Jarden Australia and New Zealand business." This has not been confirmed by Jarden. Prior to Jarden, Brunel worked for UBS Warburg and was head of its equity derivatives sales team in Australia. At Marex he is an MD and head of the firm's New Zealand office.

Various colleagues joined Marex with Brunel. Michael Peters, Jarden’s Sydney-base Australian head of institutional commodities, joined in June. A few more joined back in March, including dealer Joseph Hamer and brokers Daniel Teto and Connor Rogers, in Sydney, Auckland, and Auckland respectively. A number of analysts and associates also made the move.

London-based Marex’s foray in the New Zealand market is based on the firm’s interest in the local market for carbon credits, according to Argus Media, with plans to sell New Zealand emissions units in both Australia and Singapore. It’s a big bet on a burgeoning market for ESG-related investment – and especially pertinent given Bloomberg’s report over the weekend that ESG-related fund launches were stalling in the face of backlash.

Both the United States and South Africa have been exploring legislation to provide a framework for carbon credits. The private sector has been showing interest too, with fintechs such as Treefera – founded by an ex-JPMorgan MD – capitalizing on growing interest in the market by selling tree and forest-related information.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)