On behalf of Matterhorn Asset Management’s GoldSwitzerland Internet site, financial journalist Lars Schall interviews Hong Kong-based fund manager William S. Kaye about the objectives of gold price suppression by Western central banks and, upon its failure, the likely transition into a new world financial system.
By Lars Schall
The following interview was conducted for and originally published here by GoldSwitzerland in Zurich. In it, Lars Schall talks with William S. Kaye, the Senior Managing Director of the Pacific Alliance Group of Companies in Hong Kong. They speak about the motive, the means and the opportunities to suppress the gold price. Kaye says the motive is simple as a free-market price of gold would essentially cast the interventions for what they are and destabilize policy measures taken by central banks. However, he explains and predicts that the price suppression scheme can’t go on forever and that in the ‘end game’ the 100 fold paper gold market must eventually be settled with physical gold and that it will require an extremely high price of gold to entice owners of physical gold outside the banking system to be willing to meet that massive anticipated demand.
William S. Kaye is the Founding Partner, Chief Investment Officer, Senior Managing Director and Vice Chairman at The Pacific Alliance Group of Companies based in Hong Kong. He oversees all portfolio and direct equity management activities of the group’s various investment efforts. He is the Managing Partner of the Greater Asian Hedge Fund and a predecessor of Asian Hedge Fund, L.P. Prior to this, he was a Founder and Director at ASIMCO in 1992 to 1998, where he pioneered the investment of approximately $380 million in China. Mr. Kaye orchestrated the profitable sale of Pacific Alliance Group’s stake to GE Pension Trust in 1998.
Previously, he was a Manager of the Arbitrage Department in 1984 to 1990 and a Member of the Board of Directors in 1986 to 1990 at Paine Webber Incorporated in New York. He joined in 1978. Mr. Kaye left the Mergers and Acquisition Department at Goldman, Sachs & Co, and successfully built Paine Webber’s Arbitrage Department into an industry leader. He serves as the Chairman and Major Shareholder in Yaolan Ltd. and is a Founding Director at Synergenz BioScience Limited. He holds an M.B.A. degree from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where he graduated as a Beta Gamma Sigma scholar in 1977 and a B.A. (cum laude) degree from Vanderbilt University in 1975.
It is said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but in the case of silver, I don’t see how that can be avoided. In more ways than not, silver today reminds me of the time when it traded under $5 per ounce.
As was the case back then, the thought that it might eventually climb more than ten times in value was widely disbelieved and openly scoffed at. That’s because silver was the most undervalued asset in the world, both then and now. If you didn’t catch the first run, you’ve just been given a second chance.
And it is also interesting that silver is registering as the most undervalued investment asset precisely at the same time when there is more total investment net worth and buying power in the world than ever before. The assets in hedge funds alone are now at a record $2.7 trillion; 1 percent of which ($27 billion) is more than the value of all the silver bullion in the world (if it could be bought).
The 100 million oz of new silver available for investment annually would take only one-tenth of one percent ($2.7 billion) of hedge fund assets. Unless hedge funds have stopped looking for undervalued assets, I can’t help but feel that’s a set up akin to a lit match and a barrel of dynamite.