Would love to know if anyone has any experience either working or trading with them. A buddy of mine is looking to switch from the Ags desk to Energy and was approached by the headhunter for a role at Mitsui Bussan Commodities. Tried finding all of the info I can and still have no idea in regards to culture, salary, career progression, and all that good stuff.
Any intel would be appreciated, cheers!
Yeah, they a paper trading desk for Mitsui & Co which focuses on deal structuring etc. A few offices around the world in the main hubs. Heard they looking to expand into more products and going on a hiring spree. I don’t know much more. I mainly deal with their physical arm.
Thanks mate for the response. Have looked into Mitsui & Co as well, definitely a big player in the metals & energy operations. How's your experience dealing with their physical arm? Believe with the lack of info available for their paper trading desk, knowledge about their parent company can give a sense to their culture and all that good stuff. Appreciate it in advance :)
Japanese companies are ultra conservative. In saying this, Mitsui and Itochu are more progressive in their trading style, and pushing for more market share in 3rd party trading rather than relying on the traditional biz mode of serving Japanese end users. I have seen some senior promotions given and considered to non-Japanese individuals (more with Mitsui). Generally speaking they are slow in decision making due to bureaucracy and sheer size of the company’s. They have a rigorous approach when it comes to targeting select customers in order to not conflict with other shoga shosha’s - this is the Japanese business etiquette of respecting relationships. Japanese biz model in the late 2000’s have switched from being purely trading to investments in upstream activities to secure equity offtakes. During the mid-end 2010’s they are started to expand into more 3rd party trading activities, and like most organisations are viewing to exiting selected mining investments such as coal to support the climate accord. Nonetheless, they are a good place to work and put on your CV. Being a Japanese company they have solid SOPs in place and good business practices in international trade. Furthermore, it is a huge network of offices globally which support fundamental information flow across all desks. As mentioned above, they can be quite slow in decision making and that is a disadvantage for physical trading especially in the spot market, however, they make up for it in long term agreements. The market views selling to a shoga shosha on a term arrangement provides stable cashflow and counterparty risks are low, as it’s a Japanese business practice to always honour agreements. If Mitsui Bussan can leverage market intel from the group then it would be advantageous. However, I’m not certain on how their paper guys are allocated risk or if they are given any drawdowns/daily VaR for spec, or if they have the capacity to do any spec.
Woah, thanks for the in-depth description of how Japanese trading firms are run. Quite helpful for sure, but yes do agree that Mitsui Bussan is a bit of a mystery in terms of how they trade. If I do find anything, I'll be sure to update here as well. Cheers!
this is really interesting, thanks for the insight.
An alum from my school trades paper gas and power there and gave a talk to students. He seemed to like the culture on his desk but mentioned that he doesn't really interact much with other desks like metals because they are so different. Said his desk did incredibly well during the Texas power fiasco.
Hmm... gotcha, different culture between products... thanks!
Well yeah they trade very different products which is why those desks don't interact from what he said. Could be a good culture on the metals desk too but I just don't know.
Very legit in metals.
Ha.. for sure. Had a quick look at their recent financials
Worked with Mitsui on the ag side. Strong Japanese style of doing business. Good guys, but not the first mover on new markets.
FWIW if Mitsui Busan is in NYC...they had an incredibly impressive office @ 200 Park Ave. Two story conference rooms, Asian art and decor etc
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