In April 2012, Michael Griffin and Tris Simmonds handed in their resignations at interdealer broker GFI, where Griffin worked as a coal broker and Simmonds headed the European coal desk. Little did their superiors know that within the space of two years, the pair would have set up their own firm and grabbed a significant slice of the European physical and financial coal market. Given the size of coal market rivals such as New York-based GFI, London-based GlobalCoal and Marex Spectron, that is