Geneva-based trader Gunvor announced on Monday the successful acceptance of a management-led buyout offer of the company from existing ownership.
Under the agreement, majority owner Tornqvist will sell the entirety of his holdings in favor of a group of current employees, who will wholly own the company going forward.
Gunvor said there will continue to be no outside ownership or interests.
The management buy-out, first conceived of by the company’s leadership at Gunvor’s all-hands retreat in Morocco in 2022, will entail a “series of structural and governance changes designed to ensure the long-term commercial success and global growth of the 25-year-old company.”
The buy-out has been advanced at this time to “establish a definitive reset and path forward for a company for which misperceptions about its past have become an impossible distraction,” it said.
Gary Pedersen
Gunvor said that Gary Pedersen has been appointed as chief executive officer of the company.
Pedersen was signed in 2024 as CEO Americas based in Houston, with the intention of eventually assuming global leadership.
For an interim period, he will be based in both Houston and Geneva.
“The time is right for this transition. A generational shift has well been underway, and we have the financial strength, liquidity, and depth of leadership to continue to advance our global growth strategy,” said Pedersen.
“Our goal is to uphold our leading role as a reliable and competitive participant in the global energy markets—today and well into the future,” he said.
The new ownership of the company remains fully committed to the existing strategy of pursuing global growth, diversification, and investing along the energy supply chain, with a particular emphasis on investments and development within the US market, along with Europe and Asia.
The company said it will further implement changes to the Gunvor board of directors and executive committee, which now exclude members of the Tornqvist family or representatives thereof.
LNG
Gunvor previously said that its LNG business was the main profit contributor in the first half of 2025, which has been “very challenging” due to a backdrop of a generally oversupplied oil market.
Gunvor reported gross of profit of $524 million, an Ebitda of $686 million, and a net profit of $122 million for the first half. Net profit dripped from $417 million in the same year.
Despite the “challenging” environment, physical volumes still grew 12 percent year-on-year to 123 million metric tons (MT) in the first half of 2025, which is “broadly stable” versus the second half of 2024, Gunvor said.
According to Gunvor, the LNG business was the main profit contributor, while considering the softer performance of the US business in the first part of the year, changes in management and strategy are being implemented.
Gunvor did not provide the LNG volumes, but it said that natural gas showed the largest year-on-year increase, up 72 percent to 38 MT.
Gunvor has been trading LNG since 2010, and claims it has grown to become the largest independent LNG trading company in the world.
In September, Glenfarne’s Texas LNG, the developer of the planned 4 mtpa LNG export terminal in the port of Brownsville, signed a 20-year sales and purchase deal with a unit of Gunvor.
Under the SPA, Gunvor Singapore will buy 0.5 mtpa of LNG on a FOB basis for 20 years from Texas LNG, according to a statement by Texas LNG.
In addition, the company signed a 20-year sales and purchase agreement with Amigo LNG, a unit of LNG Alliance, to buy 0.85 million tonnes per annum of LNG from the latter’s planned 7.8 mtpa LNG export plant in Mexico.
