Who is the Phibro Corp?

Phibro LLC is an international commodities trading firm and a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy). Phibro trades in crude oil, oil products, natural gas, precious and base metals, agricultural products, commodity-related equities, and other products. Phibro’s headquarters are located in Westport, Connecticut, with additional offices in London, Ireland and Singapore.

History

The company was founded in 1901 as Philipp Brothers. It was later acquired and became the Philipp Brothers Division of Engelhard Minerals & Chemicals Corporation. In 1981 the company was spun off as Phibro Corporation, and that same year the company subsequently acquired Salomon Brothers, creating Phibro-Salomon Inc. Phibro Energy, Inc. was established in 1984, absorbing the oil department of Philipp Brothers. In 1986, the combined company removed the Phibro name from the parent company.^[7] In 1993, Phibro Energy, Inc. became the Phibro Energy Division of Salomon Inc. It was renamed to simply "Phibro" in 1996, and in 1997, Salomon was acquired by Travelers Group, which merged with Citicorp to form Citigroup in 1998. With the merger, Salomon became an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Citigroup.

Phibro came to the notice of the public when its leader, Andrew J. Hall reportedly was seeking a $100 million bonus from Citigroup, which had been bailed out by U.S. taxpayers in 2009. Reportedly Phibro was the main source of the $2 billion in pretax revenue Citigroup received in commodities trading.

In October 2009, Occidental Petroleum announced it would acquire Phibro from Citigroup, estimating its net investment at approximately $250 million. Phibro is now part of Oxy's "Midstream, Marketing and Other segment", which includes Oxy’s gas plant, pipelines, marketing, trading, and power generation operations. Hall continues to run Phibro and also heads Astenbeck Capital Management, of which 80% is owned by Hall and 20% by Occidental.