Grainnet

RJ O'Brien Partners With Powerline Petroleum Marking Continued Expansion into Commodity Hedges

Chicago, IL—R.J. O'Brien & Associates, LLC (RJO) announced Jan. 31 that it has reached an agreement with Powerline Petroleum LLC(Powerline) will join the RJO Financial division.

Powerline is a large commodity price risk management and brokerage firm, specializing in the use of over the counter (OTC) structured products for energy and biofuel clients.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

RJO Financial is a newly created division of the firm set up in 2007 to complement and expand RJO's current offering of risk management tools and strategies for its customers, specifically by creating a platform to offer over the counter (OTC) hedging products to clients. Such offerings include a broad array of commodity segments, including agriculture(grains, livestock, softs), energy (refined fuel products, natural gas,biofuel) and financial markets (fx, interest rates).

"We are extremely excited about this transaction," said Gerald F. Corcoran, chief executive officer of R.J. O'Brien.

"Bringing the expertise of a well-established energy group in-house will dramatically increase RJO's market share in the energy and OTC sector and put in place the infrastructure to offer our clients a greater breadth of products and risk management solutions," Corcoran added.

Managing Partners Darren Dohme and David Chatterton of Powerline said,"We are excited to be expanding our partnership with a firm of the integrity and history of RJO. We have long been one of their introducing brokers and the creation of this new platform will offer enhancements to the customers of both firms."

The combination of RJO and Powerline will enable RJO to continue execution of its corporate growth strategy by offering additional products and services to its clients.

Powerline specializes in energy price risk management and construction of customized hedging structures for consumers, resellers and retail distributors of fuel products.

Its trading relationships with leading over the counter commodity counterparties and market makers will augment the services provided by RJO to existing exchange-based brokerage clients.

Clients will now have transactional capabilities across virtually all commodities platforms, including exchange based, ClearPort and OTC marketplaces.

For more information, call 212-371-5999.