Oil trader under scrutiny for phenomenal success

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An oil trader who has rocked Wall Street and the White House over his nine-figure salary clings to a low profile, quietly making trades from a former dairy farm in Connecticut and emerging occasionally to satisfy his passion for art.

Andrew Hall, 58, a British-born naturalized American, has been phenomenally successful with the Citigroup unit Phibro, earning an estimated $100 million this year while the parent company reported a net loss of $18.7 billion in 2008 and took $45 billion in taxpayer bailouts.

In the previous five years, Hall earned more than $250 million, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of securities filings and Hall’s compensation structure.

That has allowed him to acquire a fabulous art collection including his favorites among the German neoexpressionists and the American Andy Warhol, and he displays his art in his 1,000-year-old castle in Germany.

But his pay packets also have grabbed the attention of Kenneth Feinberg, the White House pay czar who is examining the compensation of the top earners at financial companies that accepted government bailouts.

Reuters