Goldman Sachs sells aluminum business to Swiss firm

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Monday ended its four-year ownership of its metal-warehousing unit, unloading it to an investment firm run by two British brothers.

Just last month, Goldman executives were grilled before a U.S. Senate panel about accusations that the warehousing unit, Metro International Trade Services, withheld metal supplies and drove up aluminum prices in the U.S.

Terms of the sale to Reuben Brothers, an investment firm based in Switzerland and founded by brothers David and Simon Reuben, weren't disclosed.

The two brothers made much of their fortune in the aluminum industry, most prominently in Russia in the 1990s. Their eponymous firm has also been an active property investor of late and was mentioned earlier this year as a contender to buy the Plaza Hotel in New York.

Goldman, which bought Metro for about $450 million in 2010, declined further comment on the transaction.

Many other Wall Street banks have previously pulled back from commodities businesses amid greater regulatory oversight.

For Goldman, the deal marks the exit from a business that was increasingly fraught.

In recent years, major industrial metal consumers including MillerCoors LLC, Coca-Cola Co. and manufacturer Novelis Inc. complained that rental storage costs and wait times for aluminum in Detroit skyrocketed under Goldman’s ownership.

Executives and analysts testified at the Senate hearing that the wait times to obtain their metal ballooned to as much as two years, and resulted in an additional $3.5 billion in costs to consumers of everything from beer cans to cars.