Gunvor staff buyout pegs valuation near $5B via founder loan

By Dmitry Zhdannikov

LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - A management buyout of commodity trader Gunvor has valued the group at around $5 billion, according to two sources and a Reuters calculation based on deal's financing via a loan to staff.

Gunvor's founder Torbjorn Tornqvist has provided a loan of more than $4 billion to employees for the buyout, two sources familiar with the deal told Reuters.

The loan puts Gunvor's valuation at about $5 billion, based on Tornqvist's 86% stake in the firm, according to calculations by the two sources and Reuters. 

The financing of the deal gives a rare insight into the valuation of a privately held commodity trading business. 

The size of the loan and its repayment terms have not been previously reported.  

Gunvor and a representative for Tornqvist declined to comment.

Gunvor's employees, led by CEO Gary Pedersen, will repay the vendor loan over 10 years from annual dividends, the two sources said. Repayment can be extended beyond 10 years, one of the two sources said.

Tornqvist agreed to step down and sell out his entire 86% stake in Gunvor in December, weeks after the U.S. Treasury blocked his bid to buy assets of Russia's Lukoil.

Trading houses rarely come on the market and usually change hands when younger managers become shareholders by buying out older executives. This can take years and the price tag or valuation is not usually disclosed.

The structure - known as employee-owned partnership - is not unique to commodity trading houses such as Vitol and Trafigura. Some major investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs, were originally partnerships. Goldman Sachs went public in 1999. Mining group Glencore was also a partnership before it listed in 2011.

Many big commodity traders, including Vitol and Mercuria, do not publicly disclose their equity value.

Trafigura's 2025 annual report showed shareholder equity of $16.2 billion. Gunvor last disclosed its equity in 2024 when it was reported as $6.5 billion.

Gunvor's buyout price of around $5 billion is lower than the 2024 figure because Tornqvist has excluded some assets from the deal, including some related to his sailing hobbies and funding of a professional sailing team, one of the sources said.

Trading companies have bought physical assets in recent years, such as oil refineries, but their key assets tend to be their staff, making it tricky to put a valuation on the business. Also, a trading company's staffing can be fluid as traders can move on to rivals if offered more money.

Gunvor traded over 230 million tons of oil and fuels in 2024, less than half the volume of top global trader Vitol.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov. Editing by Jane Merriman)