(Bloomberg) — Tether Holdings SA has cut two senior precious metals traders just months after hiring them from HSBC Holdings Plc to create what it called “the best trading floor for gold in the world.”
Vincent Domien and Mathew O’Neill, recruited by the El Salvador-based stablecoin issuer as it built a gold hoard worth tens of billions of dollars, have both been let go, according to people familiar with the matter.
The reason for their departure was not immediately clear. The pair arrived at Tether just as the company was completing a record year of gold purchases, buying more than almost any central bank. Tether, which employs about 300 people, had grown large enough that some analysts pointed to its impact on the precious metal’s rally.
Domien and O’Neill were brought in to professionalize Tether’s bullion buying and help the firm generate income by actively managing its gold reserves. The hires were the talk of the gold market, as Tether became one of the largest holders of bullion outside banks and nation states, storing the metal in a former nuclear bunker in Switzerland.
Both Domien and O’Neill previously held senior roles at HSBC — Domien as global head of metals trading and O’Neill as a top salesperson.
“Tether always strives to operate with a lean team, and to continuously optimize our operations,” the company said in an emailed response to questions from Bloomberg News on the departures. “We have been building a state of the art gold team that leverages expertise gathered from all of Tether’s recent investments.”
Over the past year, a number of top traders have been poached from banks that have traditionally dominated the gold market. Trading houses have gone on a hiring spree, with Mercuria Energy Group bringing Benjamin Binet-Laisne of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. aboard and Gunvor Group hiring a slew of traders from various firms.
Tether is the issuer of USDT, the world’s largest dollar-pegged stablecoin with around $184 billion in circulation. It held about 140 tons of gold at the start of the year, mostly to back USDT, as well as its smaller gold-backed coin XAUT.
The significance of Tether’s gold buying came into focus in March, as the metal headed for its worst monthly performance since 2008. Gold fell alongside stocks and bonds in a selloff triggered by the Iran war, with higher interest rate expectations and selling by at least one central bank adding further pressure. While Tether’s long-held gold position remains deeply profitable, declines in both the metal and Bitcoin are likely to have weighed on its portfolio.
Tether said this month that it has engaged a major accounting firm to conduct its first full financial audit. Its plans to raise as much as $20 billion in external funding are on hold pending the results.
–With assistance from Emily Nicolle.
(Updates throughout with more context about their roles at Tether.)
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