TRADE FINANCE TALKS
6.1
Bitter sweet: Global trade disruption and its impact on sugar flows The ongoing impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic has severely impacted many businesses. Alongside the downfall of the oil industry and many others, we discuss the impact on a common commodity in everyone’s household – sugar. TANYA EPSHTEYN
Head of Structured Finance Czarnikow
TFG heard from Tanya Epshteyn (TE) and Stephen Geldart (SG) of Czarnikow discussing in detail the impact of Covid-19 on sugar supply chains. Czarnikow buys, sells, and moves sugar, food ingredients, packaging, and ethanol around the world. Deepesh Patel (DP): Thank you for joining us, here on Trade Finance Talks. So to begin with, a quick overview, who are you, where are you from, and what do you do at Czarnikow?
STEPHEN GELDART Head of Analysis Czarnikow
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Tanya Epshteyn (TE): My name is Tanya Epshteyn, I joined Czarnikow right at the start of this year and it’s fair to say that I am very excited to be on this side of the barricade in the current environment. I have been working with Czarnikow since 2009 when I joined Bank Leumi where Czarnikow was already a client for well over a decade.
In fact, until Jan this year my career has been dedicated entirely to banking, and so I’d like to think I am reasonably familiar with how the infrastructure of a commodity finance bank operates. Although I am no longer part of that world, I have sympathy for what my former colleagues in the sector are currently going through. Either way, be it banks or corporates, we are in this together and when it comes to weathering the storm, if we choose our partners with diligence and care before it starts, it is likely such partnerships will see us all through the worst of it and back to the good weather. Stephen Geldart (SG): Hello, I’m Stephen Geldart and I’m the head of analysis at Czarnikow. I joined the company 12 years ago as an analyst having previously worked for a few years in the oil industry. Today I’m responsible for a team of 15 analysts around the world who make sure we understand the markets we operate in as well as we can and to try to identify opportunities to help our customers.
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