What was Bogota Group?

Answer 1

The Bogota Group was a collection of coffee producing countries who attempted to manipulate the price of coffee higher through the significant purchase of coffee futures and call options. By doing so they would all receive higher prices for their physical coffee sales onto world markets.

This consortium eventually failed but through the few short years that it operated the group was fairly successful in keeping world coffee prices artificially high. The members of the group included all the major coffee producing countries who contributed significant funds into futures trading accounts principally operated from the low tax canton in Switzerland, Zug. In turn the operators in Zug traded through commodity brokers in London and New York. These brokers were often physical coffee dealers who were very pleased to be receiving higher prices for their coffee thanks to the buying activities of the Bogota Group.

The writer of this article was personally involved and was responsible for trading many thousands of futures contracts on behalf of the Bogota Group in both London and New York and on several occassions 'calling' their bankers in Switzerland for millions of dollars to support their trading activities.

The pockets of the Bogota Group were deep but like most (with the exception of OPEC, for the time being) cartels they eventually failed when there was just to much good physical coffee available in the global market place to support the high price of the futures and options thay had bought for future delivery.

The major lossers were the small coffee plantation owners in the participating countries as physical coffee prices fell.

The winners were the bankers in Switzerland the the brokers in London and New York some of whom made personal fortunes through front-running the orders placed with them by the Bogota Group. The Exchanges at that time did not have rules which effectivly prohibited front-running so orders for friends and family could be placed in front of the massive buying interest of the Bogota Group, and often were.

These were, on the whole, good times to be involved in the global commodity markets. There were mavericks and characters that would no longer be tollerated (or tolerate) by the Exchanges and regulators as we have them today. All that is for the better as effective regulation increases business and market transparency but sadly makes the place a somewhat bland environment to operate in.

Ian1959