Claude Dauphin (businessman)

Claude Dauphin
File:Claude Dauphin, CEO Trafigura.jpg
Born	(1951-06-10)10 June 1951 Houlgate, France
Died	Bogotá, Colombia
Nationality	French
Occupation	Executive chairman of Trafigura Beheer BV
Known for	Billionaire commodities trader

Claude Dauphin (10 June 1951 – 30 September 2015) was a French billionaire businessman, and executive chairman of Trafigura Beheer BV, a company specialising in commodity trading (oil, metals, ores). He had previously served as Trafigura's chairman and CEO. In March 2013 his net wealth was estimated at $1 billion by Forbes. He died from cancer in a hospital in Bogota, Colombia.

Early life

Claude Dauphin was born on 10 June 1951 in Houlgate, Normandy. He went to school in Bayeux, leaving at 16 to work for his father’s scrap metal business in Rocquancourt before moving to Paris to join the London Metal Exchange brokerage Brandeis Goldschmidt as a ferro-alloys trader.

Marc Rich + Co

In 1977 he met Felix Posen, head of non-ferrous trading at the commodities trading firm Marc Rich + Co, and joined the company as country manager for Bolivia. He later became head of zinc and lead trading before joining the executive committee as head of the petroleum division.

Following his father’s death in 1992, Dauphin left to run the family firm, which he renamed and grew to become international waste management company Ecore. He remained closely involved with the family business for the remainder of his life.

Trafigura

In early 1993, Dauphin formed a partnership with five senior Marc Rich employees who had left the company, which was bought out by senior managers and renamed Glencore. In March of that year he acquired an existing shell business based in the Netherlands, Trafigura Beheer B.V., to form a rival commodities trading firm. In its first year of business Trafigura set up a profitable oil trading book and won oil contracts in Argentina.

In 2000 Trafigura acquired Puma Energy, a Latin American mid- and downstream company which subsequently expanded and by 2014 operated from 45 countries and had revenues of $13.4 billion. By that time, Trafigura had brought in Sonangol as a 30% shareholder in Puma, and had also reduced its own stake to 49%.

Dauphin never took Trafigura public, believing private company status was the best model for a trading firm.

Trafigura’s revenue rose tenfold in the period from 2005 to 2014 to reach $127 billion.

Trafigura is known for its role in the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump environmental disaster. A Panamanian registered waste tanker, Probo Koala, was in 2006 chartered by Trafigura to offload 500 tonnes of toxic waste at Abidjan, Ivory Coast. When a local contractor hired by Trafigura illegally dumped the waste at landfill sites around the port, Dauphin led a delegation to Ivory Coast to assist the authorities and provide medical support and equipment. On his arrival, he and four others were arrested and imprisoned in the city's Maca Prison for five months on charges of dumping toxic waste; afterward they were released and all charges were dropped. While Trafigura denied responsibility and culpability, it paid €1.3 million in an out-of-court settlement. The prison of 4,000 inmates had no sanitation in appalling conditions, but Dauphin continued to do business by mobile.

Dauphin was known to be a tough, disciplined boss, who continued to recycle metals after his father's death.

Diagnosed with cancer in 2014, Dauphin worked to a hectic schedule to the end of his life. He died in hospital in Bogota, Colombia, on 30 September 2015, during a business trip.

Personal life

An intensely private man, Dauphin was known to communicate with lenders and bondholders in the company’s annual report, but not to speak publicly. The only public speech he gave throughout his life was after receiving the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2001. Dauphin was active in the philanthropic work of the Trafigura Foundation. He was married and had three children.