Grabbing A Corner On Russian Aluminum

It was one of the biggest price collapses metals traders had ever witnessed. As aluminum prices plunged nearly 50% in the early 1990s, industry experts largely blamed the Soviet Union's breakup for the chaos. Millions of tons of Soviet aluminum flooded the world market. Amidst the tumult, an obscure London trading company made a bundle on the wild selling, then bought up half of Russia's aluminum industry. Now, Trans-World Metals Ltd. and its associates control a formidable 5% of the world's aluminum output.

The rise of this little-known private company is a tale from the front lines of frontier capitalism. It's an example of how the naked grab for Russia's riches spilled onto global markets. In the lawless atmosphere after the Soviet Union's breakup in 1991, factory managers, bureaucrats, and gangsters scrambled to cash in on Russia's natural resource exports. Trans-World was one of the few foreign companies that joined the fray.