FRACTALS AND J. P. MORGAN
A few days ago J. P. Morgan announced that it had
completed purchasing global assets in the spheres of oil, metals
(including Henry Bath company), coal, as well as European energy and
gas assets having a non-American emission, from RBC Sempra Commodities.
This deal was first announced on 16th February, 2010.
A few days ago J. P. Morgan announced that it had
completed purchasing global assets in the spheres of oil, metals
(including Henry Bath company), coal, as well as European energy and
gas assets having a non-American emission, from RBC Sempra Commodities.
This deal was first announced on 16th February, 2010.
These assets are to be integrated into the Global Commodities
department of J. P. Morgan, and that fact will expand the raw
materials supply for the company headed by Blythe Masters. This united
platform will provide J. P. Morgan with physical access to the
new markets, taking into account its 26 offices in more than ten
countries and more than 130 warehouses and depots. The price paid
by J. P. Morgan to RBS Sempra Commodities for the assets
purchased was $1.6 billion.
"This deal expands our global potential in the sphere of raw
materials, enabling us to significantly expand our services
in the sphere of raw materials", said Jes Staley, CEO
of J. P. Morgan Investment Bank. "It is a perfect
acquisition for our business, for it helps us to expand the
services provided to our clients".
With that acquisition, J. P. Morgan is about to double the
number of its corporate clients, who can receive services in various
classes of assets.
"We welcome the talented employees of RBS Sempra Commodities
to J. P. Morgan", said Blythe Masters, the head of the
Global Commodities. "Having their vast experience and their deep knowledge
of the market, they will provide our company with great competitive
advantage in the process of global business expansion
in the segment of raw materials".
Having such news from corporations’ life, we can have a brief look
into the "behind the scenes" aspects of the world crisis. A very
brief look.
Henry
Bath. It was founded in 1822 (as Bath & Son)
by the members of an old English aristocratic family, and
concentrated primarily on exporting coal to Chile and importing
copper ores from there, and from the very beginning they were inclined
to controlling the entire cycle of production activities.
No wonder that those long-time servants to the British Crown quitted
their coal mining in Ireland and started their activities
in international trade. It was 1822 when the British bankers granted
a loan together with the British government to "freshly independent"
Chile, getting in return you-know-what rights in the country, where
Republicans’ victory had been gained due to the help
of a general named O’Higgins and an admiral named Thomas
Cohran.
The business was a success, and the country’s interests were largely Bath
family interests. In 1846, the company started building metal ships, and
sons of the company founder soon got married, and their wives were from
Lambert family, which was in the same coal-and-shipbuilding business. The
international situation, you know, demanded from them to unite their
assets, which were so important for the history.
In 1883, the Bath family company became one of the founders
of the London Metal Exchange, which clearly had the utmost importance
in that time. In 1890, the family obtained from the British
government the right to issue certificates and to practice insurance
in the sphere of metals’ mining and supplying. This right was granted
by the special act of the Parliament and is still valid (now
probably J. P. Morgan possesses it).
The two world wars haven’t damaged the Bath company which began working with
steel, but in 1970s in ceased to be a private
enterprise and was sold to the British Bank of Commerce
in Glasgow, Scotland. And now we can’t help remembering that selling
RBS Sempra’s share of 51% in European assets was among the conditions
for the Royal Bank of Scotland to get aid from the British government
to "save the bank from the bankruptcy". As for the Indian assets
of the RBS, which was closely connected to the British state from the
very moment of its foundation, they were sold to another
transnational monster of the present — HSBC. By the way, the
present executive officer of HSBC Stephen Green entered the group
in 1982 to head the department of corporate planning, having
obtained a doctorate degree from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, an institution actively sponsored
by J. P. Morgan, along with many other capitalist companies. But
that isn’t so important.
At the moment it became a part of glorious and victorious
J. P. Morgan, Henry Bath company possessed a vast international
network of sea port warehouses, gaining great profits from the world’s
freight traffic. With all that, it hasn’t quitted their copper ore and
coal, and now it shares profits of German and Australian companies
working in that business. We’ll talk about Germany later, and now let’s
concentrate on Australia, or, to be more exact, on Henry
Bath’s connections with MIM Holdings. This company’s headquarters are
situated at Queensland, Australia, but the company itself is not
Australian. Some time ago it was sold to "Swiss"
company Xstrata
Plc. As you can see from the above link, this company is quite
active in Europe, Latin America as well as in Africa. And
some time ago, with the help of bank groups such as Goldman Sachs,
Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Cazenove, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Credit Suisse,
Xstrata was merged with a raw materials trading company named Glencore
International. And here we just cannot help remembering that all the top
managers of another Australian company — Sundance Resources —
its headquarters is also in Queensland and it runs
a similar business, have been killed lately in a plane crash
in Congo, going there to discuss various issues of this
company’s active participation in the African projects.
Speaking about Congo, it’s worth
mentioning that, according to the representatives of Global Witness
(a non-governmental organization) "there is a direct
cause-and-effect relation between metal trading in the Eastern part
of the DRC and the atrocities committed by the armed fractions
against the Congolese citizens".
From the research done by GW representatives and UN experts,
we can conclude that all the major armed fractions, participating
in the hostilities in the Eastern part of Congo, are financed
by trading expensive mineral resources. "These minerals are used
to produce such metals as tin and tantalum, which, in turn, are
used to produce mobile phones" they say in the official
statement.
iPhone 4 is also a mobile phone. It was presented by Apple,
Inc, the shares of which were offered (Apple Inc. became "a public
company", as they say) at the stock exchange by Hambrecht
& Quist company, a subsidiary of J. P. Morgan, and
the latter is proud to mention Apple’s story among
its "key achievements".
Now back to Henry Bath. This company was purchased
by J. P. Morgan together with RBS Sempra Commodities. RBS stands
for the Royal Bank of Scotland, which possessed 51% in it. And
another 49% were possessed by Sempra Energy company, a high-potential
one, which dealt with energy supplies and consulting, once a contractor
of Gazprom. But the American infrastructure of RBS Sempra
Commodities, to the best of our knowledge, wasn’t acquired
by J. P. Morgan, due to regulations in certain fields
of US economy, introduced by the Obama administration, which impose
restrictions on private monopolies. But nevertheless
J. P. Morgan has acquired (via purchasing of Henry Bath) some
high-profile energy assets in Europe. It’s really a pity that
a German company named Metallgesellschaft in 1992 lacked Sempra
Energy’s experience in the field of crisis management while energy
resources prices were volatile. At that time, USSR withdrawal and the
subsequent offensive at the Middle East created just right conditions for
the transnational establishment, including the then US administration and
the banking groups which were mentioned above together, to gamble
on oil prices. After that, the
German bankrupt
company became a profit of Henry Bath and a subsidiary
of GEA Group AG, the latter working in the field of mineral
resources trading, energy, technologies, pharmaceuticals, GMO and
biofuels — all the necessary things for the present time, you know. And
we understand that J. P. Morgan financial group, which
concentrates these assets under its direct management (still there’s
a possibility of their rearrangement) is involved there exactly
for investing their capitals and gaining profits.
The interesting point is that they "saved" such a variety
of real assets "from bankruptcy" by selling them
to J. P. Morgan itself. Probably the reason was that those
assets were controlled by the banking establishments like RBS, engaged
in the global net of financial gambling, where the quantity
of virtual assets was much greater than that of real ones.
It was invented by the same financial groups, mentioned above
together, including J. P. Morgan. And now we witness RBS,
to say nothing of those real assets, in crisis, and at the
same time, we witness the above-mentioned financial group at the
perfect hunting ground.
By Marat Kunaev
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