Finance Operations/Structured Trade Finance Professional

Main purpose:

Finance Operations (STF) is an independent function responsible for the end-to-end operational management of Trafigura's structured finance portfolio, from transaction onboarding and pre-disbursement control through to ongoing transaction monitoring, debt servicing, exposure reporting, and portfolio analytics. The function plays a critical control and governance role in the structured finance lifecycle - owning the verification and disbursement process, managing covenant and conditions subsequent compliance, administering debt service and financing arrangements, and providing regular exposure reporting to Credit, Accounting, and senior management. Finance Operations (STF) works in close coordination with STF Regional teams, Treasury, Credit, Legal, Distribution, and Accounting, while maintaining independent oversight of operational risk and process integrity across the portfolio.

Key responsibilities:

Pre-Disbursement Management:

Perform pre-disbursement verifications prior to any disbursement under a loan or prepayment transaction, covering credit limit confirmation, disbursement request validation, legal review sign-off, Conditions Precedent satisfaction, pricing consistency against the Credit Memo, and settlement of pre-disbursement costs; where applicable, additional verifications are performed covering security perfection, independent valuation, credit insurance binding, syndication confirmation, and funding availability. Upon completion of all verifications, coordinate all required system entries across Trafigura's internal systems and instruct Treasury to disburse with all required supporting documentation.

Transaction Management:

Transaction Management covers the lifecycle of each active facility from disbursement through to final repayment.

Covenant Monitoring:

- Setup a process to maintain a comprehensive covenant register and monitoring calendar.

- Proactively flag covenant stress or potential breaches to relevant stakeholders as defined in SOP's, and maintain audit-ready records of all confirmations and supporting materials.

Conditions Subsequent (CS) Monitoring:

- Setup a process to maintain a register of all post-disbursement conditions subsequent across active transactions, tracking deadlines and fulfilment status and escalating outstanding items to the relevant stakeholders.

- Coordinate with counterparties and internal legal to obtain and file evidence of CS satisfaction, ensuring the document management system is kept up to date.

Performance Monitoring Against Contractual Documentation:

- Monitor counterparty performance - including delivery schedules, repayment profiles, offtake volumes - against the terms set out in each transaction's contractual documentation.

- Manage principal and interest repayment schedules across the portfolio, raise invoices for fees and interest to counterparties.

Financing Facilities:

- Coordinate all financing activities including cash and interbank funding requests and external loan facility management, ensuring timely and accurate execution of all debt service payments by coordinating with Treasury team.

- Provide regular updates to funding banks / risk participating institutions on delivery performance, loan rollovers, and offer notices for bank facilities supporting insurance-backed prepayment transactions.

P&L Inputs:

- Provide monthly inputs to Deals Desk on the financing P&L for every transaction.

Required qualifications:

Experience & Qualifications:

- 4 - 8 years of relevant work experience in structured trade finance, commodity finance, or lending portfolio management at a bank or commodity trading house; experience in the middle office of a commodity-focused bank is particularly relevant.

- MBA in Finance; an undergraduate degree in Engineering is desirable.

- Familiarity with pre-export finance, prepayment facilities, risk participations, ECA structures, and tolling facilities is a strong advantage.

Technical Skills:

- Ability to interpret legal agreements and term sheets across a range of structured finance products, with an understanding of security arrangements and limited recourse constructs.

- Solid financial analysis skills including covenant monitoring (financial ratios, coverage ratios).

- Proficiency in Excel; familiarity with covenant monitoring solutions is an advantage.

Behavioural Competencies:

- Meticulous attention to detail with a strong control mindset.

- Proactive and innovative, with an ability to identify and implement process.

- Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple simultaneous deadlines.

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

- Collaborative team player who builds effective working relationships across geographies and functions.

Department overview:

STF is a fast growing department, which sources, structures, arranges and syndicates Finance solutions for Trafigura's clients. The STF portfolio is around ~USD 6 bln and consists of around 120+ Pre-export Finance facilities, Pre-payment facilities, Reserve based Lending facilities etc. The STF team is made up of around 30 staff members, who are based on Montevideo, Houston, Geneva, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Singapore and Shanghai.

Key Relationships:

- External - Counterparties, Banks / Financial Institutions, Insurance Brokers.

- Internal - SF Regional Managers, Deals Desk, Physical Traders, Operators, Trade Finance, Treasury, Corporate Funding, Accounting, Legal, Credit.