Acquisitive commodity trading backer Commoditrade made a £13.4 million pre-tax profit last year.

AIM-quoted Commoditrade, which has been in ‘preliminary’ talks for some time about a bid from one of several potential suitors, achieved its profit in only eight months after restructuring. Financier Andrew Regan’s Corvus Capital holds 20 per cent of the Commoditrade, whose gains came from the company receiving 75 per cent of the revenues generated by the London Metal Exchange’s largest trading team, headed by Chris Adams and Geoffrey Conway-Henderson.

Commoditrade bought this economic interest from the French Sucden group for £24.4 million in shares and cash – a deal whose resulting goodwill amortisation takes the pre-tax profit down to £5.9 million. Adams, whose team trades copper, aluminium, zinc, nickel, lead and tin in London and copper, gold and silver also in New York, has become chairman of Commoditrade, with Graham Butt as chief executive.

The company, which also bought 75 per cent of the net profits of commodities investment manager AMCO Commodities for £1.4 million, says the LME trading team has put in an encouraging performance so far this year. Recommended by Growth Company Investor last April at 18.5p, Commoditrade shares have now reached 42p and could go further.