Mr. Repole joins Liberty following his career at a number of well-known and reputable commodity traders worldwide, where he held directorate positions in the fields of global trade and business development.

Mr. Repole, please accept our congratulations on your new assignment. We would like to ask you a couple of questions in order to give our readers an insight into your company and how you see the markets at the current time.

Could you describe your career in the steel business for our readers?

I switched my career from being a financial controller for molasses and sugar in Cargill to that of a steel trader in 1995. I then worked in Milan, Minneapolis, Istanbul, Vienna and London for various companies among which Enron and Macsteel. In 2004 I joined Noble as Executive Vice President in Hong Kong and grew their steel business to a global dimension. I have now been in Liberty for two months as commercial director and I am tasked with the reorganization of the trading team and the creation of new trade flows.

Could you tell us about the organizational structure of Liberty Commodities?

Liberty has its headquarters and main hub in London where we cover the Americas, Europe and Africa commercially. Dubai, our second hub, covers CIS, Middle East and India. Bangkok office covers the rest of Asia.

We have production facilities and projects in various countries in Africa and India, and a network of offices in over twenty countries.

What will be your major focus in your endeavors at Liberty? Are you planning any reorganizations or revise your approach to markets and the business?

Liberty has grown very fast and is now a big commercial organization with some one hundred people. In the mean time, the "cake" got a lot smaller for steel traders and we have to be a lot closer to our counterparties to make sure we do not miss opportunities.

My task is to ensure that communication flows freely and constructively within the company and that we take advantage of our knowledge and abilities to serve our stakeholders properly.

Which products and which markets do you expect to be in the spotlight?
 
As a trading company we must have a diversified focus depending on customer and market needs. Certainly we will remain a major player in the semi finished and hot rolled products as well as India and GCC markets, but we will look at growing our volume in other products and geographies especially in Africa and some selected Far East countries.
 
What is your general sentiment about the overall market outlook today?

There is hardly any interest from users along the steel supply chain to stock large quantities as real demand is still not picking up. This will cause extreme price volatility when buyers will all enter the market to restock at the same time or after the fact, when mills will have increased production to cope with increased demand and this has already faltered.

Until the banks resume proper lending and consumers' confidence is back in the saddle, we will live with tight volumes and high volatility.