29/06/2011 Author: Will Wainewright

Armajaro’s Anthony Ward defends cocoa trade at Gaim

Armajaro co-founder Anthony Ward, who hit the headlines last year for a £658m ($1.05bn) cocoa trade, defended his commodity fund’s impact on food prices last week, saying he hoped any new regulation resulting from G20 meetings would be meaningless.

Ward was speaking at Gaim International in Monaco, where industry regulation was a frequently discussed topic during sessions around the conference hall.

“The view it is our fault that the price of food has gone up is confusing and wrong,” Ward said. “A new rule is likely to come out of the G20 but hopefully it will be a rule that doesn’t mean anything.”

He was dubbed ‘Choc Finger’ by the British media as a result of Armajaro’s cocoa investments, which, as of last year, have seen the firm buy up 15% of the world’s cocoa stock. France holds the G20 chair this year and Ward said he expected President Sarkozy to try to take action on the effect commodity trading has on prices.

Ward was speaking in a discussion on hedge fund blueprints in the modern era, alongside fellow industry heavyweights Daniel Shapiro and Oscar Schafer. Bernard Oppetit of Centauras Capital said there had been “regulatory overkill,” adding that he doubted “anyone on the planet” had read the full text of Dodd-Frank.

Many managers used the conference to seek advice on how they will be impacted by various policy developments. Alexander Ineichen, of Ineichen Research & Management, spoke on the final day to argue the hedge fund industry had been unfairly blamed by policymakers for events in 2008 and that much of the new regulation could be counterproductive.