Asia Rising Star: Ray Zhirui Ang, CEO of EEX Asia

Asia Capital Markets Awards Rising Star of the Year: Ray Ang Zhi Rui, the chief executive of the EEX Group (EEX Asia) 

EEX Group (EEX Asia) has emerged in the past year as the world’s largest dry freight market under the leadership of Ray Ang Zhi Rui, the chief executive of the EEX Group (EEX Asia) Singapore-based market.

A founding member of EEX Group (EEX Asia) (formerly known as Cleartrade Exchange), Ray became chief executive in January 2020 after four years as chief operating officer and six years as an operations director.

Before joining Cleartrade in 2010, Ray worked at Barclays Capital in Singapore and Freight Investor Services in London either side of his Masters in Mathematical Trading and Finance from the Cass Business School.

Ray’s main achievement this year was making EEX Group (EEX Asia) the largest dry freight derivatives market by taking the majority market share in seaborne dry freight from rival the Singapore Exchange.

EEX Group (EEX Asia) said in June its volume share of the market hit 50.5%, up from just 3.5% last year, while its share of OI also jumped to 54% from 7.7% last year. The share of options OI was 50.3%, while futures achieved an OI share of 56.7%.

In April, EEX Group (EEX Asia) said it had gained the majority share of open interest (OI) in the combined futures and options freight market for the first time at 52%.

EEX Group bought Nasdaq Futures' (NFX) futures and options business in November, acquiring its core assets and portfolio of open interest in US Power, US Natural Gas, Crude Oil, Ferrous Metals and Dry Bulk Freight contracts.

EEX Group (EEX Asia) migrated 90% of NFX freight open interest to its clearing house in February while the remaining 10% went to SGX. At the time EEX Group (EEX Asia) said it had a 46% market share in the freight derivatives market. 

EEX Group (EEX Asia) said its freight market has grown significantly over the past 18 months, with an increase of 109% compared to last year. Volumes in the first quarter exceeded the volume generated in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 combined.

To download the Global Investor Autumn Special 2020 magazine including all the results from the Asia Capital Markets Awards, click here.