Goldman-Backed InCommodities Plans Debt Raise After Profits Fell 96% in 2025

The Numbers

InCommodities A/S reported earnings before tax of €2.9 million for 2025, down from €72.5 million the prior year. That is a 96% collapse in profitability in a single year, according to Bloomberg via the Financial Post.

The firm still holds nearly €500 million in equity, so this is not a distress story. But the direction of travel was bad enough that Chairman Jesper Johanson is now looking outside the company's traditional self-funded model to keep growth on track.

What Happened to the Profits

InCommodities built its business on the back of the 2022 European energy crisis, when soaring gas and power prices and wild volatility made every trade in the market potentially lucrative. Denmark became a hub for this kind of prop-style energy trading, and firms like InCommodities, Equinor ASA's Danske Commodities, and MFT Energy A/S all posted record results.

Then the market normalized. Volatility receded. The edge disappeared. According to the Financial Post, all three Danish firms reported steep profit drops. InCommodities was not alone in getting hit.

The Debt Plan

Johanson told Bloomberg he sees "potential in increasing our financial capabilities on the debt side." The firm intends to use debt to deploy more capital across trading operations, essentially increasing its capacity to take positions without tapping equity reserves.

The plan includes expanding into physical natural gas trading in North America. Johanson acknowledged North America did not turn a profit last year. Borrowing money to scale up a losing geography is a calculated bet, not a slam dunk.

The Case for the Strategy

Fair argument in favor: InCommodities has been operating since 2017, is active in more than 40 gas and power markets, and holds a substantial equity base. Volatility returned in 2026, according to Bloomberg, partly because of the Iran conflict and its impact on global energy supply routes — though a U.S.-Iran peace deal has since been reached in recent days, introducing new uncertainty about whether that volatility will persist. A firm with the balance sheet, the market presence, and a Goldman Sachs minority stake has credible reasons to believe the lean years were cyclical rather than structural. Raising debt during a soft patch to be positioned when conditions improve is a standard playbook in commodities trading.

Goldman's involvement does not guarantee success, but it does mean the firm has gone through institutional scrutiny that most traders do not face.

The Risk

The concern worth taking seriously: debt amplifies both gains and losses. InCommodities previously funded growth through equity, which meant downturns were absorbed without leverage pressure. Adding debt financing changes that equation. If 2026 volatility proves shorter-lived than hoped, or if the North America expansion continues to underperform, the firm will be servicing debt with thinner margins than it is accustomed to.

The company has not disclosed the size of the planned debt raise, the structure, or the cost of that financing. Those details matter and are not in the current sources.

Europe's Storage Problem

Johanson raised a separate and more immediately consequential warning. As of June 15, 2026, European gas storage levels stand at 44%, compared to a five-year average of 59% for this point in the year.

His direct quote to Bloomberg: "The market is not sending any incentives to start to fill the gas storages. Something needs to change fairly soon."

That gap is not academic. Europe went into the 2021-2022 winter with below-average storage and ended up facing an energy crisis that lasted two years. If storage does not accelerate through summer, winter price spikes become a real operational risk, not a tail risk.

Higher volatility in European gas this winter would directly benefit a firm positioning for active power and gas trading. Johanson warning about the storage situation while also raising capital to trade more aggressively reflects the dual opportunity he sees in the market.

Context From the Broader Market

The Financial Post's Bloomberg wire also flagged that a U.S.-Iran peace deal, reached in recent days, has laid groundwork for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. That deal sent oil prices lower and aluminum to a two-month low as of today. The energy price and volatility picture going forward depends heavily on whether that deal holds and how quickly physical shipments through the strait actually resume.

For InCommodities specifically, the open question is whether the volatility window that returned with the Iran conflict is wide enough and durable enough to justify the debt it is about to take on. The storage data Johanson cited suggests European gas volatility is not going away quietly, but geopolitical normalization could compress margins again faster than the firm expects.