Founder
Talex Commodities Capital Ltd.
Steven has been working in upstream and midstream natural resources for 30 years. He began his career at Glencore (then Marc Rich and Co) in 1988 in Zug and focused on the emerging markets of the former Soviet Union, Africa and Latin America. Working in conjunction with Western European banks, Steven developed innovative financial solutions that allowed Glencore and others to secure off-take contracts and to deliver raw materials into emerging markets at a substantial premium.
After Glencore, Steven held senior and CEO positions at TransCanada Pipeline Ltd, Credit Agricole Investment Bank and Alfa Group of Russia. In the 1990s and 2000s, as logistics and facilitation became increasingly important, Steven worked closely with local and national governments to upgrade pipelines, ports, terminals and local warehousing in emerging markets. After the financial crisis in 2008, Western European banks increasingly withdrew from the natural resource sectors as they no longer had the balance sheets to execute and syndicate commodity deals. Steven soon thereafter formed Talex Commodities to provide solutions to address the decline in bank funding, working with private equity and debt providers, including family offices, to implement innovative capital structures such as streaming, convertible debt and royalties, into the junior mining and oil & gas sectors. In sum, with 30 years of experience in physical commodities and finance, Steven is one of the few professionals working within the industry that has the background of structuring and executing deals on the ground, not simply sitting behind a desk in New York, London or Toronto. He has a BA in History and a JD in Law and is a member of the New York Bar.
Keynote. Why I’ve not done a deal in Eurasia in 10 years?
Market, legal, economic and banking data points from 1988-present. Addressing the issues such as country risk and the impact that 2008/9 had on the private equity and debt markets concerning allocation of risk and especially Basel 3.