NZX Australian agri-business head resigns for role as grain trader

Wednesday 4th April 2012

NZX’s Australian agri-business general manager Pat O’Shannassy has resigned to take up a new role as a grain trader.

During O’Shannassy’s tenure since 2010, he worked alongside teams in the stock exchange’s Clear Grain Exchange and Grain Information Unit as NZX targeted Australian agri-trading. The outgoing NZX executive will take up a role in grain trading, through which he’ll continue to have links to Clear Grain Exchange and GIU.

Under his leadership, the grain exchange trading has grown to about half a million tonnes in the recent harvest, NZX said.

O’Shannassy will be replaced by GIU head Ron Storey. The grain exchange has been a touchy subject for NZX, with law suits and countersuits laid between former employees Dominic Pym and Grant Thomas who set up Clear.

NZX is seeking reparation from the exchange founders, claiming they misled the company over its A$6.9 million purchase in 2009 with inaccurate forecasts. Pym and Thomas are seeking A$41 million in a counterclaim. The dispute is slowly working its way through the courts and should be heard later this year.

The platform was originally set up to take advantage of the break-up of the Australian Wheat Board monopoly and was hoping to cash in on the A$100 million to A$150 million growers spend annually on commissions to sell their products.

Grain trading was expected to add another suite to NZX’s agricultural products and came in the dawning of its dairy futures trading.

Shares in NZX rose 0.4 percent to $2.81 in trading today.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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