Tocqueville Bullion Reserve Launch
In January 2014, TERA Asset Management, LLC, launched Tocqueville Bullion Reserve (TBR) with approximately $50 million in assets. TBR is a private partnership designed to help manage systemic risks revealed during the Global Financial Crisis and later through Refco, MF Global, and the Cyprus banking crisis. Despite the best efforts of monetary authorities, systemic risks have not abated and are resurgent across the emerging markets.
By storing gold bullion bars outside of the financial infrastructure, TBR allows investors to maintain liquid emergency reserves that do not rely on financial counterparties or functioning capital markets. Investors can tailor geographic diversification by allocating their TBR holdings to non-bank fully insured vaults in Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the US. Initial investors included major gold producers, wealthy individuals, and family offices.
Investors in gold typically fall into three categories: (1) those attempting to profit from a bet on the future direction of the gold price, (2) those looking for an uncorrelated source of return (portfolio diversification) and (3) those seeking insurance against systemic risk. TBR aims to serve investors in the second and third categories by providing an efficient way to own physical metal with minimal counterparty risk. Using a partnership structure, TBR combines discretion with legal and regulatory compliance, audit controls, insurance, and custodial relationships that would be standard in any institutional financial product. However, because TBR is simply an arrangement for safe ownership and storage of a physical substance, it is not a financial product and, therefore, not regulated by banking or securities industry authorities.
Gold bullion is purchased or sold by TERA when the limited partner enters or exits the partnership. Investment or redemption takes place on a daily basis with 24 hour notice. Trade executions in the highly liquid gold market are at cost; TERA does not markup for commissions. TBR does not use leverage, derivatives or any other financial instruments. In the US, TBR is open to accredited investors only. The administrator provides monthly NAV statements for each limited partner. The minimum investment is $100,000.
Gold has an unmatched history of preserving wealth during periods of systemic destabilization without regard to geography or preceding financial arrangements. However, in order serve this function, it must be owned and held in a secure form with no intermediaries that are susceptible to the systemic risk it is designed to guard against (e.g. Lehman Bros). The partners of TERA believe that TBR represents such an alternative.
TERA* is a limited partnership consisting of John Hathaway, Senior Managing Director of Tocqueville Asset Management, Robert Kleinschmidt, President and CIO of Tocqueville Asset Management, Simon Mikhailovich, founder and partner of Eidesis Capital, and Michael Sollott, partner and co- founder of Eidesis Capital. For further information on TBR, please visit our website www.bullionreserve.com and/or contact Simon Mikhailovich at [email protected].
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*Neither Tera nor TBR is an affiliate of Tocqueville Asset Management. Mr. Hathaway and Kleinschmidt are involved as individuals.