Young makes a market in oils

In his 1999 book, Capital Market Revolution: The Future of Markets in an Online World, financial consultant Patrick Young warned stockbrokers and floor traders that electronic markets would soon make them irrelevant.

In his 1999 book, Capital Market Revolution: The Future of Markets in an Online World, financial consultant Patrick Young warned stockbrokers and floor traders that electronic markets would soon make them irrelevant. Now the 36-year-old Irishman, himself a former London swaps trader, is taking aim at another group of market middlemen: the roughly 300 intermediaries who dominate commerce in tea tree oil, used in everything from perfume to soap to mouthwash.

Last month Young and a partner established the Sydney-based Essential Oils Exchange (EOEX), an electronic market that will start out by trading the oil created by crushing leaves of Australia’s native tea tree. Antiseptic, antifungal and analgesic, the oil is sold to cosmetic and pharmaceuticals companies.

“The whole marketplace for tea tree oil needed to be brought into the 21st century,” says the 36-year-old Young, who is based in Monaco. “There are six to eight intermediaries for each transaction in the tea tree business, and both ends of the supply chain were deeply unhappy.” Next up on the trading board: eucalyptus, geranium, rose and sandalwood oils.

Reflecting on his new career, Young muses, “I know a great deal more about perfume than most men should admit to.”

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