March 07, 2012

On Why Kyle Bass owns so much gold

"My opinion is very simple as a fiduciary... to the extent that you own gold and you are going to own it a long time --it's not a trade. It costs us about 90 basis points a year to roll it through financial futures contracts," he said.
"And then we went and looked at the COMEX. The COMEX at the time they had about $80 billion in open interest between futures and futures options. In the warehouse they had $2.7 billion of deliverables. So $80 billion in open interest - $2.7 billion in deliverables. We’re gonna own it a long time. You're on the board, as a fiduciary, what do you do? That’s an easy one. You go get it. So you go take a billion of $2.7 billion and you let them worry about the rest."
"When I talked to the head of deliveries at COMEX NYMEX, I was like, 'What if 4% of the people want deliveries?' He said, 'Oh Kyle, that never happens. We rarely ever get a 1% delivery.' And I asked, 'Well what if it does happen?' And he said, ‘Price will solve everything' And I said, 'Thanks, give me the gold.'
It is noteworthy to mention also that Kyle Bass owns physical platinum bars as well as Canadian nickels. It seems he is worried about runaway inflation and believes metals are best to protect him.

Kyle Bass, an American hedge fund manager, is the Founder of Hayman Capital. He received extensive coverage in the financial press for profiting $590 million by short selling the sub-prime mortgage bond market, before that market crashed. In 2011, Bass initiated a huge position in Greek sovereign debt through CDSs. Media reports were that he could profit up to 650 times his investment should Greece default on its debt obligations.