Evelyn Partners Sells EPFS (Employee Benefits Arm) to Howden, Refocus on Private Wealth

Private wealth manager Evelyn Partners is selling Evelyn Partners Financial Services, EPFS, to Howden, a global insurance intermediary, to refocus the firm on its core competency of wealth management. 

38 employees in the Employee Benefits department will transfer in the first quarter of 2026.

Evelyn Partners' CEO, Paul Geddes (former CEO of FTSE-250 firm Direct Line, acquired by Aviva on 1 July 2025) remarked appreciatively:

 "Howden will be a great long-term owner".

Evelyn has a 10-member Executive Management team headed by by Paul, covering areas like Finance, Financial Planning (led by Emma Sterland, ex-HSBC private bank), Risk and Compliance and Marketing. Technology comes under COO Bahador Mahvelati.

Evelyn is the third biggest UK wealth manager by AUM: in order - 

• St James' Place Wealth Management (£160bn+)
• Rathbones Group (£60bn+)
• Evelyn Partners (£60bn+), formerly Tilney Smith & Williamson

RBC Brewin Dolphin (under RBC) and Coutts (part of the NatWest Group) with £40bn come next.

Julius Baer loan losses of $184m Added

Julius Baer has completed a credit review - which has led to a decision to manage down a subset of its loan positions, primarily in income-producing residential and commercial real estate.

The Lombard loan book and the traditional residential mortgage portfolio are resilient.

Lombard loans (also known as margin loans) are a type of secured loan where liquid assets (securities, bank balances) are pledged as collateral, typically granted to private wealth clients.  These loans may be significantly over-collateralized with liquid assets  - thus reducing risk to the lender.

The name is taken from the Lombards of Northern Italy, who first established the conventions of banking in the Middle Ages.

Benefits to banks are a relatively low-risk stream of additional income, while strengthening ties with important high net worth customers.

"We are now entirely aligned around our core wealth management proposition," CEO Stefan Bollinger said. Stefan started his career at Zurcher Kantonalbank as an interest rates derivatives trader.

He has introduced new measures since joining, including reducing the size of the executive board from 15 to 5, streamlined regional setup and is introducing efficiency measures.

Julius Baer is headquartered in Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich (a popular shopping street, largely pedestrianised). Key metrics including assets under management (497bn CHF for Dec24), and net new money (CHF bn) and total assets (CHF m) can be found on their financial information webpage.

Sugar (Number 11) Futures Down 35%

Sugar futures are down 35% this year, at lowest levels since 2020. 

Sugar No. 11, futures contract (SB) for raw centrifugal cane sugar, is the world benchmark for sugar trading.

The centrifugal reference alludes to the production process,  where crystallised sugar-and-molasses mixture is spun in a high-speed centrifuge. This separates sugar from molasses, yielding raw or semi-refined sugar. 1 futures = 112,000 pounds of sugar, physically settled, FOB receiver's vessel (the port must be in the sugar's country of origin). This is around 50,000 kilograms of sugar.

Contract months are March, May, July, October.

Sugar is one of the most traded futures contracts on ICE, with 31.5 million contracts traded so far in 2025 (35 million contracts traded in 2024).

Copersucar SA (Brazil) is the world's largest trader of sugar and ethanol.

Trafigura $600m Fraud Trial Centres on Nickel Cargoes

Geneva-based Trafigura is suing businessman Prateek Gupta for running a "Ponzi scheme" and "systematic fraud" alleging he substituted $600m of nickel cargos (meant to be 99.8% pure) with low-value carbon steel. 

Gupta has admitted to supplying fake cargoes but counterclaims that the scheme was orchestrated by Trafigura themselves, to elevate their standing in the nickel market but giving an impression of high trading volume. 

Complaints around the cargos started coming in around November 2022. Nathan Pillow, lawyer for Trafigura, was quoted as saying the company had "paid for rubbish".

Citi was also involved in the financing of these deals.

The scheme was apparently disrupted when Citi, spooked by rising nickel prices, demanded return of physical nickel cargoes.

Jain Global Seeks Regulatory Capital Business

Bobby Jain is launching a new fund led by an ex DE Shaw portfolio manager to invest in bank capital relief trades or SRTs (significant risk transfers), allowing banks to transfer credit risk from their loan portfolios to external investors - it's also known as "RWA optimization". The benefit to the bank is that it reduces the capital it has to hold. Investors receive a premium for absorbing potential losses. "Basel III Endgame" is expected to increase demand for these services.

StoneX offering Environmental Futures and Options

StoneX will provide its clients with access to environmental futures and options on the Nodal Exchange, which supports trading on over 120 futures and options products (focused on North American commodity markets) and was founded in 2007 (now owned by the European Energy Exchange, or EEX).

Motive Partners Takes $100m Stake in Electric Mind

Motive Partners has taken a $100m stake in Electric Mind (henceforth "EM") described as a "a high-growth, AI-led services firm grounded in engineering excellence". 

"EM"'s former name was Intelliware, and Electric Mind is a "rebranding for the age of AI", with a go-forward focus on growth in wealth and alternative investments.

The plan is to have a close collaboration, with leaders of both firms joining the company's Board. 

Richard Lumb, Motive Industry Partner, will join the Board (former Group CEO of Financial Services at Accenture) as will Sreeram Visvanathan, Head of Motive Create (innovation and value creation engine within Motive Partners) and former CEO of IBM UK and Ireland.

To scale impact across financial services, the Investor-Operator-Innovator (IOI) model of Motive will be brought to bear bringing expertise, connectivity and operational support.