Sigma Broking hires top metals trader Adams from Sucden

London-based Sigma Broking, a Category One member of the London Metal Exchange, hired Adams this week, according to the same sources.

Adams was with Sucden Financial for more than 20 years, latterly holding strategic responsibility for group’s LME Ring dealing team.

He re-joined Sucden in April 2016 after a stint in Monaco with metals trading house Levmet having previously helped build the broker’s Ring dealing team after the firm became a category one member in 1994.

Adams’ recruitment is a major coup for Sigma Broking and its metals business which became in January 2022 the LME’s first new Category One, Ring-dealing member in more than 15 years.

Cat One members enjoy the widest access to the LME’s various voice, phone and electronic markets, including a booth in the LME’s Dealing Ring, the last of its kind in London.

Sigma is separately holding sales talks with an investment firm, as first reported by FOW in late June, with the prospective buyer potentially set to significantly increasing Sigma Broking’s working capital.

This is relevant because the LME proposed in November last year to increase clearing members’ minimum net capital requirement from $10m (£7.4m) to $30m, which could affect smaller Cat ones like Sigma.

There are currently eight LME Cat One members including some of the largest non-bank broking firms such as Marex, which listed its shares on Nasdaq last April, and StoneX, which acquired US clearing broker RJ O’Brien last month for $900m.