Although Zhang is the CEO of the London Metal Exchange, many decisions will be made by the UK Financial Market Conduct Authority, the new regulator, after supervision without objection.
Zhang 20 12 joined the London Metal Exchange. Prior to that, he was responsible for providing consulting services for HKEx's acquisition of LME in UBS Group AG. After entering, Zhang was promoted rapidly. He was only 34 years old when he became the acting CEO of the world's largest industrial metal exchange in June 20 17.
Although young, when Zhang took over as CEO, the exchange faced the joint attack of brokers, banks and traders because of the rising transaction costs, and at the same time faced the new situation that algorithmic trading was increasingly influential in the metal futures industry. After Zhang officially took office, he changed his opposition with customers, discussed many problems faced by the exchange through a 58-page report, and made some compromises on transaction costs. This practice has also been appreciated by core users.
Of course, Zhang is not without users' censure. For example, his decision to permanently close the famous outcry trading hall in LME history and instead conduct comprehensive electronic and telephone transactions caused great controversy.
The more intuitive problem is that although most industrial metals experienced an extreme surge in 20021,LME, as the global metal pricing benchmark, its contract trading volume fell to the lowest level in the past decade, with an average daily futures contract trading volume of about $64 billion. Among them, the dispute between the exchange and some of the largest brokers about whether to close the bidding hall has had a certain impact.
HKEx also announced last Friday that Adrian Farnham, the current CEO of LMEClear, a self-operated settlement platform, will become the acting CEO of LMEClear and will seize the time to find the next acting CEO of LMEClear before Zhang leaves office.
According to people familiar with the matter, Zhang will be the CEO of Xiaomiu. Komainu is a blockchain asset custody platform invested by Nomura Securities and CoinShares.