It was a surprise about-face for a bank that spent billions of dollars over the past five years assembling the largest physical trading platform on Wall Street.
On paper, it seems the perfect one-stop shop for a financial rival looking to buy into the world of pipelines and pallets: a global oil trading division includes a contract supplying the biggest refinery on the East Coast; Henry Bath & Sons Ltd's 72 metal warehouses from Baltimore to Busan; a U.S. natural gas book three times larger than that of any other bank; and enough electricity contracts to light up Indiana.