A London hedge fund has swept up a large chunk of the world’s stocks of cocoa beans, helping to drive prices of the basic ingredient of chocolate to their highest level in 33 years, the FT reports. Armajaro, co-founded by Anthony Ward, took delivery of 240,100 tonnes of cocoa beans last week, betting that a steep rise in prices is set to continue, the newspaper said, without citing sources, the Sunday Times says. The The 240,100 tonne delivery was the largest since 1996 and represented almost all the physical stocks registered with the Liffe exchange, fuelling fears of a supply crunch for the September contract.

This entry was posted by Tracy Alloway on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 3:37 and is featured in The 6am Cut London (19 Jul 2010), The Lunch Wrap (19 Jul 2010) . Tagged with Anthony Ward, Armajaro, chocolate, cocoa. Edit this entry.