ED&F Man Holdings Ltd. has agreed to sell a part of its brokerage unit as the commodities trader sheds assets to focus on its core business. The re-branded business, HedgePoint, will employ about 100 people in Switzerland, the U.S., Brazil and Argentina, Cardoso said. It will focus on helping customers in the commodities supply chain with risk-management tools and technology. “We will expand very much so in Latin America and the U.S. and the EMEA region right away,” he said. “We will be hiring quite a few people in the market. Then we will branch out to different commodities within those regions. That’s the first focus,” with Asia expansion following soon after, he added. The deal to sell the structured commodities business will help ED&F Man appease lenders who have pressured the firm to shed assets and improve profitability. In November, Suedzucker AG, Europe’s top sugar producer with a 35% stake in the trader, said preliminary figures suggest ED&F Man will post a net loss for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. That would be a fourth year of losses.