Reuters: Regulatory News: Goldman's aluminium offer may soothe but leave costs high

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Goldman's aluminium offer may soothe but leave costs high Aug 1st 2013, 13:58 Thu Aug 1, 2013 9:58am EDT * Proposal will not reduce costs of securing metal * Plan seen as a smart move to placate regulators * Lasting change seen coming from LME proposal By Susan Thomas and Silvia Antonioli LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs' olive branch to beleaguered metals customers will do little to help bring down the high cost of securing aluminium, but even critics praised the proposal as a smart move to placate regulators and silence complaints. Goldman responded to mounting political pressure and regulatory scrutiny of its Metro International metals business on Wednesday, by offering customers immediate access to aluminum stored in its warehouses. In a statement outlining the bank's proposals to cut waiting times at all London Metal Exchange-registered warehouses, Goldman said it would let major consumers swap aluminum held in its warehouses for metal the bank has acquired, without the need to pay a steep cash premium. "With all this pressure from regulators it looks like Goldman wants to come clean," Kamil Wlazly, a senior analyst at Metal Bulletin Research, said. "But aluminium queues were one of the reasons why aluminium consumers have increasingly decided to shy away from procuring metal through the LME warehousing network." Customers and U.S. lawmakers have accused Goldman Sachs and other warehouse owners of artificially inflating wait times and lines to boost rents for warehouse owners and cause metal prices to rise. One major customer estimated the delays have cost consumers more than $3 billion. Warehouse owners and outgoing LME CEO Martin Abbott have said the complaints over long lines are unjustified, arguing there is no shortage of metal. Instead, they said the long lines have been created by traders trying to move metal to rival warehouses that are offering financial incentives in a bid to boost their own rental income. CLEVER BUSINESS "I think this proposal is a very smart move on Goldman's part," said one source with knowledge of the warehousing business. "They have always claimed that the objections from the consumers are spurious because they are not the ones that are actually in the queues." Goldman said its offer applies only to large metal consumers like carmakers and soft drink producers, not to financial traders like hedge funds, or rival merchant commodity traders like Glencore Xstrata or Trafigura. "If no-one takes them up on this, they turn around and say there you are, told you! Nobody needs to swap warrants to take physical delivery," the first source said. "To people not really in the know, they will say that's great, so it's a clever piece of business." In testimony to the U.S. Senate banking committee last week, brewer MillerCoors LLC complained aluminium users like themselves were being forced to wait in some cases over 18 months to take physical delivery of metal, or pay the high physical premium to get aluminium today. Goldman President Gary Cohn told CNBC television on Wednesday that no consumers had stepped forward to take up the offer. "I certainly would not go and cancel 10,000 tonnes of aluminium in a Goldman warehouse in the hope that they will swap it for me. This company is not a charity," said one physical aluminium trader in Europe. Moreover, it doesn't solve end-users big bugbear. I The queues have caused the price premium on some metals, like oversupplied aluminum and zinc, to surge, prompting accusations that the banks and traders that own storage facilities are artificially inflating prices and distorting supplies. "In terms of premiums, there is no big change on the ground. Maybe a very gradual reduction but nothing steep," the European trader said. "If you want to buy aluminium you will still struggle to find any cheap metal. I can't find anybody who has drastically reduced their premium." Any lasting changes though will have to include all companies in the LME's network of warehouses. Under mounting pressure to ease the problem with wait times, the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd owned LME announced on July 1 sweeping reform of its warehousing policy, its third attempt to placate angry users. If approved, those changes will come into effect in April. And it might just work. The LME's warehousing committee, which includes Metro and Glencore's Pacorini, held an extraordinary meeting this week, and all but one of its members voted in favour of the new deal, three sources with knowledge of the matter said. "That is a big accomplishment," said one of the sources. "With the pressure on various parties from regulators I think the general feeling is that people don't want to go into battle on this one. Whether they like it or not, something has to change. There is an air of inevitability about it." Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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