(Bloomberg) -- Trading house Freepoint Commodities LLC is expanding into retail energy sales, the latest move in what Chief Executive Officer David Messer promised would be a year of growth for the company.
A new unit, Freepoint Energy Solutions, will focus on supplying power to commercial and industrial customers, the Stamford, Connecticut-based company said in a statement Tuesday. The business will be led by Bradley Quester, former vice-president and head of pricing and portfolio at fuel distributor Guttman Energy.
Freepoint is entering an increasingly crowded market. Power producers including Exelon Corp. and Calpine Corp. have taken on direct retail sales to hedge against losses at their own plants as they grapple with a surge in renewable energy and week demand. MidAmerican Energy Services, a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has 60,000 retail electric customers in the U.S.
Founded in 2011, Freepoint is in “expansion mode” after enjoying its most profitable year ever in 2015, Messer told Bloomberg News in a May interview. The commodities merchant opened an agricultural trading office in June, bought a stake in a Virgin Islands refinery complex in January and expects to make more purchases of fuel storage and transportation businesses as the rout in commodity prices puts more properties onto the market.
The statement didn’t discuss the potential size of the market, staffing or other details. Freepoint Energy Solutions will have offices in Stamford and Houston and plans to begin operations in the coming months in deregulated energy markets.
--With assistance from Jim Polson To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Nussbaum in New York at anussbaum1@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Marino at dmarino4@bloomberg.net, Jim Efstathiou Jr., Reg Gale
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