Could you provide a brief journey of how you arrived where you are today?
I’ve been working in the investment and finance industry for more than 30 years. Prior to forming Bullion Management Group (BMG), I held positions in the investment arms of some of Canada’s leading real estate firms, primarily designing tax-efficient structures for real estate investors, developing investment vehicles and arranging venture financing.
In this line of work, I was constantly researching world markets for opportunities and new ideas. Eventually it became clear to me that the precious metals sector was an area that held the most promise for investors.
This belief led me to start BMG in 1998.
What does your role involve?
My role, as with the rest of the team at BMG, is to develop bullion investment solutions that meet the many needs of our clients and, at the same time, not compromise any of the fundamental attributes of the bullion we hold on their behalf.
What is your greatest achievement to date?
Developing the BMG philosophy: The core holding of every investment portfolio should be unencumbered, fully allocated and insured physical bullion. We call this philosophy uncompromised bullion.
Which of your products/services deliver the best results?
BMG BullionFund, an open-end mutual fund trust that invests in equal dollar amounts of gold, silver and platinum bullion. As of 2009, this is Canada’s largest Shariah compliant mutual fund and the second largest in North America.
In addition, we recently launched BMG Gold BullionFund. This new fund invests exclusively in uncompromised physical gold bullion.
What are the strengths of your business?
Avoiding the trends and fads that have a tendency to show up in the investment fund arena. We focus our business on developing bullion investment solutions that do not compromise the benefits of bullion. We provide efficient, safe and secure ways to purchase and store physical bullion.
What are the factors contributing to the success of your company?
BMG has maintained its reputation as one of the world’s safest and most secure bullion ownership companies by selling and providing allocated storage for unencumbered bullion — we do not sell any form of proxy or derivative for gold, silver or platinum.
What are the obstacles faced in running your business today?
I believe the key issue is educating investors about precious metals and overcoming their fear and preconceptions. We have published several reports to help investors overcome their preconceptions about precious metals, including: Gold is Money; Six Biggest Myths About Gold; and How to Invest in Precious Metals.
There is a spectrum of precious metals offerings: On one side there are derivatives of bullion, essentially paper bets on the price of bullion. On the other side is physical bullion. Some investment vehicles may have bullion as an asset, but the structure in which it is held causes the attributes of bullion to be compromised.
Currency hedging is either an expense or a risk, and it can be both. Hedges that are neutral in terms of costs can result in large losses if the market moves quickly in the wrong direction.
Where do you see the Islamic finance industry in, say, the next five years or so?
While it is difficult to predict where things can go from here as we are in uncharted territory from the global economic crisis, Islamic finance may begin to take a significant foothold in the conventional financial world.
As a return to sound business ethics becomes more important, institutions may turn to classical Islamic structures in lieu of the current debt and derivative structures that are commonly used today.
Name one thing you would like to see change in the world of Islamic finance.
A change that we would like to see across the board in both Islamic finance and conventional is a return to sound money principles.
Specifically, if Islamic countries were to return to a gold standard similar to the historic bimetallic dinar/dirham system that was used during the height of the Muslim expansion, many of the current global economic challenges would be lifted.