Deutsche Hires Ex-BNP Commodity Banker Hayashida to Expand Japan Hedging

Deutsche Bank AG hired Takashi Hayashida, the former head of commodity sales of BNP Paribas in Tokyo, to meet rising demand from utilities and manufacturers for hedging fuel against price swings.

Hayashida, 33, joined Deutsche Securities Inc. yesterday where he will work with Kenichiro Yamaguchi, head of the Tokyo commodities desk, Seiko Adachi, a spokeswoman for Deutsche Securities, said by telephone today from the Japanese capital.

Germany’s largest lender is boosting sales of derivatives to help Japanese power utilities, manufacturers and airlines reduce risk from fluctuating fuel costs. Steelmakers may follow Mitsui & Co. into the growing commodities swaps market after Credit Suisse Group AG helped the company seal Japan’s first iron ore swap trade on June 25.

“European and U.S. banks began a search for commodities experts in Tokyo in April,” said Ken Hasegawa, commodities derivatives sales manager at brokerage Newedge in Tokyo. “The emergence of iron ore swaps trading might be luring banks to increase their headcounts and capture potential demand growth for hedging.”

The iron ore swap market may grow 10-fold to 360 million metric tons annually over the next two years, Credit Suisse estimated in February.

Hayashida’s entry came after Deutsche Bank hired Yamaguchi, the former president of Mitsubishi Corp.’s fuel-trading unit, in February. Hayashida has eight years experience in commodities risk hedging. Before BNP Paribas he worked at the Japanese offices of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Swaps allow utilities and other producers to pay a fixed price for a commodity while another party, usually a bank, pays a floating price, based on market benchmarks. If the benchmark goes up during the term of the contract, the utility gets a payment from the bank, and if it goes down, the utility pays.

To contact the reporters on this story: Shigeru Sato in Tokyo at ssato10@bloomberg.net; Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net.

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