Claude Dauphin (businessman)
| Claude Dauphin | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
10 June 1951 Houlgate, France |
| Died | 30 September 2015 (aged 64) Bogotá, Colombia |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Executive chairman of Trafigura Beheer BV |
| Known for | Billionaire commodities trader |
Claude Dauphin (10 June 1951 – 30 September 2015) was a French billionaire businessman and executive chairman of Trafigura Beheer BV, a company specialising in commodity trading (oil, metals, ores). In addition to being one of the company's founding partners, Dauphin had previously served as Trafigura's chairman and CEO. In March 2013 his net wealth was estimated at $1 billion by Forbes. Dauphin died from cancer in a hospital in a Bogota, Colombia hospital at the age of 64 after a two-year struggle with lung cancer.
Claude Dauphin was born on 10 June 1951 in Houlgate, Normandy in northern France. He went to school at the Ecole St. Laurent in Bayeux, leaving at 16 to work for his father’s scrap metal business in Rocquancourt before moving to Paris to join the London Metal Exchange brokerage Brandeis Goldschmidt as a ferro-alloys trader.
In 1977, he met Felix Posen, head of non-ferrous trading at the commodities trading firm Marc Rich + Co. Posen hired him to work at Marc Rich, where Dauphin's first post was in La Paz as country manager for Bolivia.
He moved to New York and subsequently Zug, Switzerland to take up positions as head of zinc and lead trading. In 1988, Dauphin joined the executive committee as head of the petroleum trading division in London.
In 1992, as a result of the controversy surrounding Marc Rich and his indictments in the United States, Dauphin left the company following his father’s death. He took over management of the family firm, which he renamed and grew to become international waste management company Ecore. He remained closely involved with the family business for the remainder of his life.
In early 1993, Dauphin formed a partnership with five senior Marc Rich employees who had left the company, which was bought out by senior managers and renamed Glencore.
In March of that year, he acquired an existing shell business based in the Netherlands, Trafigura Beheer B.V., to form a rival commodities trading firm. In its first year of business Trafigura set up a profitable oil trading book and won oil contracts in Argentina. The company also profited as a supplier of raw materials to China, growing to become the third largest global oil trader.
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