Global commodity trader Gunvor posted a steep decline in net earnings for 2025, with net profit dropping 85% to $104 million, according to financial results released on Tuesday.
The company said the figure reflects writedowns and other impairments totaling $462 million that were recognised by the new management team after an employee-led management buyout replaced former CEO and co-founder Torbjorn Tornqvist.
The buyout, which changed the firm's leadership structure during the year, valued Gunvor at around $5 billion. As part of the transaction, Tornqvist provided a loan of more than $4 billion to employees to enable the purchase.
Gunvor and other commodity trading houses had to contend with heightened politically driven market volatility during the year, the company said, which contributed to a shift toward lower profit margins following the earlier demand recovery from COVID-19 and the market dislocations tied to the Russia-Ukraine war that had helped produce record earnings in 2022 and 2023.
"Throughout most of 2025, the energy markets remained structurally tight yet politically volatile, whereby trading margins were driven less by fundamental supply and demand imbalances and more by navigating fragmentation, sanctions, and regional dislocations in flows," Gunvor CEO Gary Pedersen said.
Pedersen also reported that the firm had already generated in the first quarter the equivalent of its 2025 gross profit of $1.63 billion, attributing that performance to what he described as a pick-up in "constructive volatility" toward the end of the previous year.
Context and implications
- Net profit fell to $104 million in 2025, down 85% from the prior period.
- The reported result includes $462 million of writedowns and impairments booked by the incoming management team.
- The employee buyout valued Gunvor at about $5 billion, with Tornqvist providing a loan of over $4 billion to employees to complete the transaction.
The company described trading conditions as affected more by political fragmentation, sanctions and regional dislocations than by simple supply and demand dynamics, and signalled a stronger start to the year in terms of gross profit generation.