Glencore was founded in 1974 by Marc Rich, a living legend in the field of commodities and one of the 100 richest men in the world. His life seems to be the most exciting of a spy novel.

Marc Rich, a fugitive Nazi jew escaped from Europe at the age of seven years, is American with roots in Belgium. It soon became one of the most skilled traders of oil, it was he who during the first world oil shock (1973) invented the oil spot market, hitherto the monopoly of state authorities.

His biographer, David Amman, says that the most important affairs of the '70s there was always a hand Rich: smuggling in South Africa, corruption in Nigeria, more or less dirty work for Mossad. Just for Israel makes the deal that will cost him 17 years of exile from the United States sells smuggled Iranian oil to Israel.

Rich march was tried and convicted (the attorney general was Rudolph Giuliani, who became mayor of New York in 2001) for crimes against the United States. He was forced into exile in Switzerland pending extradition, because it did not come, another twist in January 2001, the last day before leaving the White House, Bill Clinton signed his grace. In the meantime, though, Mr. Rich was not left with our hands.

In 1993-1994, in particular, had tried to seize the world market for zinc went wrong and we went back, at least ostensibly, the control of Glencore since then directed by CEO Ivan Glasenberg, a few words with South African the passion of the march, and German Willy Strothotte, who until then had led the Xstrata, the mining giant.

For information on his foundation: http://www.marcrich.ch

GLENCORE

The company has a confidentiality legend that is taking almost the characteristics of a cult: the 500 best universities in the selected trader on the planet asks extreme obedience, in addition to having to be at the center of the information, and financial policies, half of world. And to act with the aggressiveness of a private army: as in the region of Katanga, Congo, where between 2007 and 2009 Glencore secured control of the largest zinc mines for less than $ 500 million, thanks to a pact with President Joseph Kabila, but especially by exploiting the financial crisis that blew up the financing channels for the previous owners.

With the arrival of the stock market, Glencore and goes shopping for mining companies, and it introduces some 'transparency of glass and steel building in Baar, at whose entrance stands a huge ball holed up by a pyramid. This will be at least one of the tasks of the new board, called to offer a respectable face to the giant commodities. From Tony Hayward, the former BP fired for the incident in the Gulf of Mexico, but well-connected Russian oil circles, called in council as an independent, like Li Ning, one of the most powerful billionaires in Hong Kong.

But we should be concerned above all the president: Simon Murray from Leicester, born in 1940, a life that fits in well with the story of Glencore. At 18, Murray, son of the military, embarked for South America. A year later he enlisted in the Foreign Legion fight between Oran and Algiers, where the second regiment of paratroopers, engaged in mopping up the casbah. In the sixties, leaving the Legion sergeant and seeks (and finds) fortune in Hong Kong. He wrote a book about his adventures. With Glencore will find material to write.

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