Mooney quits Trafigura to launch Merrill fund of funds

David Mooney, formerly head of power and gas trading at Trafigura in London, has left the Swiss commodity trading house to join Merrill Lynch. Mooney will join Merrill in mid-June as a managing director where he will be charged with evaluating commodity hedge funds for proprietary investment purposes.

Merrill would not divulge the amount of capital to be made available to Mooney in his new role and Trafigura would not say if it has yet replaced Mooney.

Mooney joined Trafigura in May 2003 from Bank of America where he the long-serving head of commodity derivatives. Speaking at the time Mooney said he had chosen bypass opportunities to establish energy trading desks for other banks and intended to work purely in commodities rather than commodity derivatives. “Commodity derivatives have lost