London, July 25: To some, he is a real-life Willy Wonka. To others, he is a Bond-style villain bent on taking over the world’s supply of chocolate.
In a stroke, a hedge fund manager here named Anthony Ward has all but cornered the market in cocoa. By one estimate, he has bought enough to make more than five billion chocolate bars.
Chocolate lovers here are crying into their Cadbury wrappers — and rival traders are crying foul, saying Mr Ward is stockpiling cocoa in a bid to drive up already high prices so he can sell later at a big profit.
His activities have helped drive cocoa prices on the London market to a 30-year high. Mr Ward, 50, is not some rabid chocoholic, former employees say.
He simply has a head for cocoa. And, through his private investment firm, Armajaro, he now controls a cache equal to 7 per cent of annual cocoa production worldwide, a big enough chunk to sway prices.
“Globally, he is unmatched in his knowledge of cocoa,” said Mr Tim Spencer, a former Armajaro executive.
Armajaro maintains offices in West Africa, helping Mr Ward keep tabs on major cocoa crops. “We even have our own weather stations — our very own that no one else has in some parts of the world,” Mr Ward, said in an interview this year with a financial news service.
Now, traders here are buzzing that Mr Ward has placed an audacious $1 billion bet in the London market for cocoa futures. This month, he bought 241,100 metric tonnes of beans, they say.
His play has some people up in arms. While some see it as a simple bet that cocoa
prices will rise on falling supply, others say Mr Ward has created a shortage of cocoa simply to drive up the price himself.
The German Cocoa Trade Association and others wrote an angry letter to the London Exchange on which cocoa is traded, demanding that it take action against what the association characterised as a “manipulation.”
The British news media has christened Mr Ward “Chocolate Finger,” a nod to the Bond villain Auric Goldfinger.
And on Facebook, someone has created a “Choc Finger” page, featuring Mr Ward’s face superimposed on a pig that is bellying up to the trough.
The fear is that Mr Ward will become the go-to source until the annual cocoa harvest, which starts in October.
With candy makers starting to stock up for the holiday season, they may be forced to pay him ever-higher prices — and cocoa has already jumped 150 per cent since 2008.