Over the last quarter century or so, as I have been directly involved in CTRM and related software, outside investment and M&A has been a consistent and ongoing theme. I have even experienced an investment myself when at TransEnergy and I saw the very basic mistakes made there that resulted in the inevitable collapse of a good company and its subsequent acquisition for pennies on the dollar by a competitor. The issue seems to me to be that commodity trading is a complex business, and outsiders never fully appreciate that. Instead, they often appear to believe that the complexity has never been fixed because the people working in the industry are, well, perhaps a bit dim and have no idea how to resolve the complexities. They believe that they can fix the issues but soon run into the issues once they get in and understand that the industry is filled with bright and innovative people who thrive on complexity. In a series of blog articles, I want to tackle the subject of investment and M&A using the experiences that I have experienced and observed over that time. In this first blog on the topic however, I want to visit the… continue reading