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DGC Magazine
“Paper is poverty....it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.” - Thomas Jefferson 1788
February 2009 Digital Edition
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“Anglo Far-East...”The original private gold and silver custodian.”
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20 § DGC Magazine February 2009 Issue
who were looking for a more liquid way to earn andhold large amounts of gold and silver. These clientswere also nervous about holding large amounts ofbullion within their countries. I am talking about NorthAmerica, Central and Western Europe, and places likeSoutheast Asia and Australia.So we set about setting up a facility where we privatelytook delivery of physical bullion bars and independentlyvaulted them in a non-bank vaulting facility. Also, wepaid special attention to providing a chain of integrity interms of the auditing of this bullion and the long-termstorage of it. The key here is that it was outside of thenormal bullion banking industry.Today we have a facility in Kloten, Zurich, which ishousing large amounts of gold and silver. This isindependently audited and independently insuredthrough Lloyds of London underwriter. We are providingprivate allocated bullion bar accounts to our clientsfrom around the world.Now we set this facility up at a time where we were
the rst people doing it. And the reason we did that
of course was to provide geopolitical and international
diversication, but a key factor was that our bullion
holding facility was outside of the larger bullion bankingindustry. We have been in business doing this since1991.
Morgan: Did you foresee when you started that
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Philip Judge: I’m Philip Judge, founding director ofAnglo. Also on the call with us are Simon Heapes,another director, and Alex Stanczyk, who heads upbroker/dealer relationships as well.
David Morgan: Would you give us some backgroundon the company, please?
Judge: Thanks, David. To look at Anglo today in 2008in these interesting markets we’re in, really is the resultof probably 20 or more years of development withinwhat have been tricky markets. I guess all your readerswould agree with the tricky markets part, David. In the1990s, my business partner at the time (also a found-ing director of Anglo) and I were traveling the world andmeeting with some forward-looking, sophisticated in-vestors, high net worth investors, who were starting tosense a change in the economic season we were in—
the greed cycle in the ’90s. This has denitely played
out, of course, right through to the day we’re now in.Some of the more forward-thinking people were startingto wake up to silver and gold again and starting to try toget a feel for the markets. In those days we were sellingprivately issued coinage. Also, we were meeting clients
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DGC Magazine February 2009 Issue § 21
regulatory environment. We’re simply doing it from aninternal perspective.
Morgan: So if anybody from basically around theworld wants to open an account, they’re free to doso as far as you’re concerned?
Judge: Providing they supply us with the informationthat is required to satisfy us in terms of who we’re really
dealing with. So, you’d be familiar with the normal nan
-cial institutional requirements in terms of understandingwho the actual account party is—who is opening thataccount. Typically we are looking for forms of ID thatwould be issued by a government, such as a passport,or a license issued by a government, and so on.
Morgan: I understand. So right now there is norestriction on U.S. citizens moving money todifferent jurisdictions. That may change, but at thiscurrent time, it’s my understanding that there areno restrictions. So I would just advise any of thereaders of The Morgan Report to do their own duediligence.
I’d like to move on to another issue we have. We’ve gotreaders in 72 countries around the globe. Roughly 50percent are in the United States and approximately 38percent are in Canada. And then it’s sprinkled aroundthe world. In several jurisdictions, there’s a value addedtax problem, you might call it, through most of Europe.And it varies as high as, I think, 17½ percent on silverin the United Kingdom. I believe it’s 7 or 8 percent insome of the Eastern European countries. How doesthat affect a client of Anglo Far East?Judge: Because the bullion is held within a custodialarrangement within a bonded facility, at this pointthere is no VAT paid on the transaction. We do chargefront fees, of course, which include insurance andthe bailment process. However, VAT doesn’t applyuntil such time as someone wants to take physicalpossession or physical delivery. Then there will be aVAT applied. Typically if that release into safe custodyof a client happens within Switzerland, I think it’s abouta 7½ percent VAT. But, if not, if it’s being shipped, it’sshipped less VAT into the jurisdiction where that personis going to take delivery. The client will also pay localVAT within that jurisdiction as it applies to their localarea.
Morgan: Can you give me an example of a typicalclient? Of course we’ll keep it anonymous. But, foran example, is it perhaps 90 percent of the clientelewho do not take physical delivery? I’m just trying to
there were some issues with any of the certicate
programs? Or maybe a holding facility that was ona non-segregated basis? In other words, was thereany impetus to get you to move into the format thatyou have?
Judge: Precisely. We set up bullion accounts with some
reners and bullion banks. We started accumulating
some metal positions. We wanted to try to get a
denition of how that metal was being held. I’m talking
about the years of 1995 and 1996. At that time, atleast on the Internet, there wasn’t a lot of informationin the public domain about non-segregated versussegregated, unallocated versus allocated accounts.So we started to ask some questions.
“What does 
it really mean when the fne print says that you may 
use the precious metals on our account, you’re the owner and you may trade with it and deal with it as you want? And yet, it is ours? Where is the risk? How 
is that physical bullion actually being held? Is it refnery 
inventory or what is it, actually?” 
In this process we started to come up with answersthat we were NOT looking for. In fact many times the
very specic questions we were asking simply weren’t
being answered at all. By around 1997, it was becomingclearer within the public domain that there were thesephysical short positions that existed on the balancesheets of some of these larger bullion banks. At thattime we had really managed to prove to ourselves thatwe’d taken the right direction in doing something thatwas independent and separate all together from thelarger industry service providers.
Morgan: My next question deals with the PatriotAct of the United States. And there’s a lot ofmisunderstanding about this. But what is yourperspective on a U.S. citizen wishing to participatein the Anglo Far East Company?
Judge: We are providing a facility for internationalclients. I must say at this point, David, that we arevery, very thorough in the due diligence of our clients.However, we’re not providing information about ourclients to thirdparty regulatory authorities in differentparts of the world. We have a very strict internal policyin terms of the kind of information we require, the true
identication of our clients, their source and origin of 
funds, and so on.So we do have a high internal policy in terms ofmaintaining these records. However, we’re notdoing that to meet with a third-party governmental or
of 00

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