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Filed Pursuant To Rule 433
Registration No. 333-167132
August 27, 2010
Transcript of Interview posted on Business News Network August 26, 2010
with Jason Toussaint of the World Gold Council Gold Demand Parts One & Two
PART 1
MR. ANDREW BELL: World Gold Council says demand for the yellow metal will remain robust in 2010.
Whats behind the shiny outlook? Jason Toussaint is Managing Director of U.S. for the World
Gold Council. He joins us from New York.
Jason, Ive just been reading your report on Q2 demand. One of the things thats amazing really is
the surge in demand in buying for investment purposes in Europe.
MR. JASON TOUSSAINT: Absolutely. Theres no doubt that this was an exceptional quarter: 1,050
tons compared to the same quarter last year, a 36% increase is absolutely astounding. Its
one of the strongest quarters, in fact, in the past five years.
Within the investment sector, I think what you just noted is quite important as well is the
reemergence of the European retail investors preferring physical bars and coins has reemerged
literally from out of nowhere over the past two years, and they accounted for 80 tons in the past
quarter.
Just by way of comparison, for the five-year period coming into 2008, European retail investors
were less than 10 tons per year. So this is an exceptionally strong quarter for sure.
MR. BELL: Its the Germans and Swiss. I guess theyre the ones with the money usually, but not
people in Italy and Spain or Greece, which are very troubled.
MR. TOUSSAINT: Well I think its important to note that, as youve just said, Germany and
Switzerland are very popular purchasing places for buying the physical metal because its
traditionally been a very efficient market. However, it is important to keep in mind that
there are many people who visit those places, purchase there, and then bring the metal back to
their home countries.
MR. BELL: Why do they do that? Because theyre set up to sell retail bars?
MR. TOUSSAINT: They are. It could be a preference. There may be more selection. Its kind of
the international crossroads in the European market particularly in the case of Switzerland
and similarly in Germany.
MR. BELL: Can you give me a rough idea? If I go in and buy a bar in Germany, what denomination
would I typically buy and what kind of a premium over the actual gold price would I typically
pay? Is it a fat premium I have to pay?
MR. TOUSSAINT: I think its a fairly efficient market. I think there are, again kind of coming
to the reason why Germany is so strongthere is a very liquid two-way market, and of course
price discovery in terms of where the spark [phonetic] [background noise] gold price at any
point in time is lingering, is very easy to ascertain.
Lets not forget that in the European market there has been a very strong history of buying
physical bars and coins, and its reemerging. Its not forgotten knowledge. So there is wise
investors out there.
MR. BELL: On the supply side, you quote this amazing statistic that were still down, world mine
output of gold is lower than it was in late 2005. They just cant find the stuff anymore it
seems.
MR. TOUSSAINT: Correct. Theres a couple of factors going on there. In terms of existing
mines, we see a general degrade in the ore quality coming out of the ground as well. So the
yield per ton of stone brought to the surface is yielding less ounces. Thats one issue. The
other is, against the backdrop of essentially exploding exploration budgets, it is, to your
point, getting more and more difficult to find. So the bottom line is that the easy gold or
the easy mineable gold is far gone.
MR. BELL: We critics of the gold mining industry saying Look, theyre mining dust. Theyre
crushing mountains to get the stuff and its getting more and more destructive. Thats got
to be a worry for people in the industry.
MR. TOUSSAINT: Well I think the majority of gold mines, there are, of course, different types of
gold mining operations. If we look at South Africa, for instance, many of these mines have a
fairly small footprint on the surface, yet go 2-1/2 to 3+ km straight down into the earth. So
its not necessarily like other mining activities for other metals and minerals which are
known to be very destructive. Gold mining, I think, generally compared to those is much more
efficient.
MR. BELL: Yeah. Well, okay, we will get into a big argument about this. Yeah. Interesting
though that China is a huge producer. You know, we dont reallyits the worlds number one
gold producer, and we dont really hear much about it.
MR. TOUSSAINT: Absolutely. I think the reason is because a lot of the gold mining in China is
going to meet domestic supply. So there are limited amounts coming out of China onto the
international markets because there is vast demand, as we know, from domestic Chinese
investors as well as incremental jewelry purchases.
MR. BELL: Now do you guys buy into the thesis that kind of gold bugs like to espouse that paper
money is just losing its cache; people are worried about governments just cranking up the
printing press to get rid of these huge debts?
MR. TOUSSAINT: Yeah, thats an interesting point. I dont think there is one investment thesis
that is the best. There is no doubt across the worldand we saw this recentlythe hiccups in
Europe with concerns about the future of the Euro in the Euro zonecurrency as well as
sovereign debt crisis. There is real concern about the printing of vast amounts of currencies
by many regimes around the world, and I think this has brought gold back onto the radar screen
for many investors who may have not been looking at gold, for sure.
MR. BELL: IN the past weve seen when gold prices went up, weve seen a lot of melting down of
gold, and you talk about that in your latest report, but has there been a flood of this
recycled secondhand gold coming onto the market?
MR. TOUSSAINT: In terms of flood, I wouldnt necessarily use that term, particularly in this
past quarter; however, it is important to note that the recycled gold market, in terms of
tonnage coming back onto the market, is more correlated with the volatility of the gold price
than it is with the absolute gold level at any point in time. And its the same relationship
with gold jewelry purchases, for instance. Theres a fairly strong correlation if the price
is shooting up positively, a major positive correlation, there is a requisite slowdown in gold
purchases. When people get more comfortable with a particular range where gold is trading
over a monthly basis, then they tend to come back into the market.
I think we, obviously depending upon where the gold price is, is headed from here, but I think in
terms of the recent surge in scrap coming back onto the market, we may have seen the peak, but time
will tell.
MR. BELL: Coming up, Jason has kindly agreed to stick with us because were going to be
dissecting the gold ETF boom, second quarter saw that massive inflow of gold into ETFs. Were
going to talk about the sometimes controversial impact of ETFs on the industry next.
PART 2
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MR. BELL: Were back with Jason Toussaint of the World Gold Council. One thing, of coarse,
standing out from the Councils Q2 Report, Gold ETF investment increased by a whopping 400%.
People are pouring money into thesebasically, theyre like mutual fundsthat trade on the
stock exchange, but they hold all kinds of gold. Jason now knows this industry, this product,
intimately. Hes also CEO of World Gold Trust Services, which is the sponsor of the gigantic
Spider Gold Trust. Its worth more than 50 billion dollars.
Jason, thanks so much for coming back. I wanted to ask you, some critics of Gold ETFs have said,
look, its really unfair on gold mining companies. They cant attract capital anymore. What do
you think? Is it distorting the investment picture that way?
MR. TOUSSAINT: I dont think so. This question does come up a lot from the investors we do
speak to, about the relative merits of buying gold mining companies versus the physical metal
itself. And I think what the marketplace is telling us is that there is a place for both in
their portfolios.
I think it is important to note, however, that in periods of real crisiscertainly if we look at
2008 where global equity markets returned negative 50+ percent in one yeargold, physical gold, was
one of the only asset classes that not only held its value, but provided positive return in the
midst of that storm. More importantly, gold mining equities during that period of time where,
basically, swept out with the rest of the sellout of the equity market.
MR. BELL: Now we just had Christopher Eccelstone on commodities, and hes an analyst. Hes with
Whole Garden. Hes says that this could turn into a lobster trap for investors.
What does he mean? He says if you look at this 50 billion-dollar spider, gold ETF, if this thing
shrinks 20% because of redemptions or whatever, thats going to mean 10 billion dollars worth of
gold dumped on the market. Couldnt that turn into a self fulfilling route in the gold price?
MR. TOUSSAINT: Yeah, I think it could. However, we need to think of that amount of tonnage, not
with regard to one product, but investors in gold. Could investors turn negative on gold?
Absolutely, as they could with any other asset class. So I dont necessarily agree that the
size of any one particular investment product causes any issue in the marketplace.
In addition, I think it is important to note that ETFs are just one investment vehicle. Of course,
we have the bar and coin market, and medallion market that is quite popular. Its been around for
thousands of years. Many investors, as we discussed earlier, in Europe, for instance, are turning
the physical spot, metal itself, not necessarily the ETFs, so theres no one size fits all for all
types of investors, for sure.
MR. BELL: Im sorry to harp on, but I mean, were looking at a chart now that shows the
fantastic growth of gold ETFs. And I mean, this is something new. We havent seen this
before, I mean, in the past decade or so, gold ETFs have come. So we are, kind of, in unknown
territory here, arent we?
MR. TOUSSAINT: Yeah, I would absolutely agree. I think the key, though, to remember is that the
ETFs have only been around for about five and a half years. The SPDR Gold Shares was
launched in late November 2004. So in the history, in the grand scheme of things, these are
relatively new products.
The biggest change though, however, to note is that these ETFs caused a paradigm shift in the view
towards gold as an asset class. So gold has shifted from one of a safe harbor investment more to a
strategic portfolio asset class that investors are more comfortable with for holding for the long
term. That is the underlying fundamental here.
MR. BELL: Now could you just tell usyou guys are sitting on about 50 billion dollars worth of
gold. Do you actually hold it, despite our GLD? Do you actually hold it in a vault or where
is the gold physically?
MR. TOUSSAINT: The gold is held physically in one vault in London by HSBC and the bullion is in
allocated form held in the form of 400-ounce London good delivery bars in conformance with the
London bouillon market association standards.
MR. BELL: So its actually there, physically? Its not, like, tied up in a derivative contract
or anything like that?
MR. TOUSSAINT: No, that is correct. It is physically there, unencumbered, in allocated form.
It is audited twice a year by a company called Inspectorate that enters the vault and
physically handles each of the bars once per year, and confirms the markings and stamps on
each bar versus the custodians records.
MR. BELL: Were almost out of time. Could you just remind us, whats the mechanism by which
this giant ETF shrinks and enlarges?
MR. TOUSSAINT: In terms of creation redemption?
MR. BELL: Yeah.
MR. TOUSSAINT: Right. Okay. There are a number of broker dealers called authorized
participants and they deal directly with the trust in units called creation units, which is a
certain number of GLD shares, in this case. They will put an order in to create shares and
then settle gold in London with HSBC on trade date plus two. On the settlement date T plus
three, HSBC will move that bouillon from unallocated form into allocated bars.
Once that allocation process is complete, they will send note to Bank of New York, who is the
trustee for SPDR Gold Shares and they will release those shares onto the marketplace. So at no
time are there shares of GLD floating in the marketplace that are not physically 100% backed by
physical metal.
MR. BELL: Jason, were
almost out of time. I hope you dont mind me asking this. Personally,
Im old school. I buy gold mining shares. How do you hold your own gold, if you dont mind
me asking?
MR. TOUSSAINT: I have some physical, and I also own some gold mining shares.
MR. BELL: So youre hedging your bet?
MR. TOUSSAINT: Indeed.
MR. BELL: Jason, thanks very much indeed for joining us and giving us that insight today.
MR. TOUSSAINT: My pleasure. Thank you very much.
MR. BELL: Jason Toussaint, U.S. Managing Director for the World Gold Council, and CEO of World
Gold Trust Services, which is the sponsor of GLD, that giant gold ETF, worth more than 50
billion dollars.
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forward to hearing from you. Thanks very much for watching Commodities Today. We will be back
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