KANSAS CITY, Mo., Aug. 13, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FCStone Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:FCSX), a commodity risk management firm, today announced that Michael Antman has joined the firm as Vice President of Marketing Communications. Mr. Antman has been a marketing and marketing communications consultant to FCStone since its acquisition of Downes-O'Neill in December 2007, where he also served as a consultant. In his new role, he will continue to be responsible for advertising, public relations, and marketing the FCStone brand through seminars, conferences, the media, and new digital channels.
"This new position is a perfect fit for my background and I'm excited about using my experience to further build awareness of the FCStone brand," said Mr. Antman. "Having worked with FCStone for nearly two years, I believe that the expertise of their commodity-risk consultants is truly unique in this industry. This is an exciting time for FCStone and I'm gratified to have this opportunity to help communicate their risk management services and the continuing growth of their business."
"Michael is a natural choice to lead FCStone's marketing and branding initiatives," said David Smoldt, Vice President of Operations at FCStone. "His experience in marketing and marketing communications will be a key part of our ongoing efforts to build FCStone's market presence."
Mr. Antman has more than 30 years of experience in marketing communications and has consulted for many leading futures and options exchanges, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, as well as for a number of FCMs and brokerage firms. He began his career as a market reporter, grain analyst, and public relations writer for the Chicago Board of Trade. He later spent many years as a creative director and principal of an integrated marketing communications firm, and after that, ran his own corporate branding and strategic communications consultancy. He also was Vice President of Marketing for the Arkidata Corporation. He will be based in Chicago.
About FCStone Group, Inc.
FCStone Group, Inc., along with its affiliates, is an integrated commodity risk management company providing risk management consulting and transaction execution services to commercial commodity intermediaries, end-users and producers. The firm assists primarily middle market customers in optimizing their profit margins and mitigating exposure to commodity price risk. In addition to risk management consulting services, FCStone, LLC, operates one of the leading independent clearing and execution platforms for exchange-traded futures and options contracts. FCStone Group, Inc. serves more than 8,000 customers and in the 12 months ended May 31, 2009, executed 73.7 million derivative contracts in the exchange-traded and over-the-counter markets. The FCStone Group companies work in all the major commodity areas including agriculture, energy, renewable fuels, foods, forestry, cotton and textile, dairy and currency exchange. Headquartered in the Midwest, it has offices located throughout the world and is a clearing member of all major North American Futures exchanges. FCStone Group, Inc. trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "FCSX."