HONG KONG-based company J. Rotbart & Co. said on Tuesday that 20 percent of its global transactions in gold during the first quarter of 2019 originated from the Philippines since the opening of its local office last January.
Without citing the exact amount, the family-owned boutique firm specializing in physical precious metals and tangible assets is estimated to have generated about $10 million in gold deals here in the first three months of the year, as Founder and Managing Partner Joshua Rotbart hinted a ball-park figure they “trade about $200 million a year” worldwide.
“It’s still not extremely high, but again it’s growing,” he told reporters during their media briefing held at the Manila House Private Members Club in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. “So for us, it’s a very important key market.”
Based on the World Gold Council (WGC) report, gold has a strong history in improving the risk-adjusted returns of investment portfolios, reducing losses and providing liquidity in times of market stress. Being a low-risk, low-maintenance investment instrument, it usually shows a good performance even during financial uncertainties.
In fact, gold has a positive record in protecting investors against extreme inflation, as its price increased by more than 14 percent on average during years when it was higher than 3 percent, per the WGC. Hence, investment demand for this precious metal internationally has grown at an average of 18 percent annually since 2001.
In the Philippines alone, gold has always been considered as a strategic tangible asset for wealth preservation and diversification. But interested Filipino investors need direct and streamlined access to the gold market. This is where J. Rotbart & Co. comes in as it brings its in-depth experience and years of managing around $1 billion in precious metals to serve local investors.
Its physical metal services include sourcing and liquidation of gold, silver, platinum and palladium bars and coins. The firm offers 10 secure tax-free vaults globally and delivery of bullion to over 35 destinations worldwide.
Also, it specializes in authentication and assaying of bullion, as well as lending using physical metals holdings as collateral. Its services lately include the conversion of cryptocurrencies to gold and vice versa through JR-Crypto.
“Gold is more than just a status symbol or a commodity. Its track record has shown it can be a strategic asset for wealth protection and diversification to help investors become more than ready when financial market stress strikes. And, we at J. Rotbart & Co. are here to provide Filipino investors the opportunity to access the gold market with a streamlined process that will help them meet their investment goals,” said Rotbart.
Currently, the company is working with BDO private bank to offer gold as an investment tool for their clients. It is open to partner with more local banks and other investment houses to sustain the growth of its business.
“We’re going to keep this 20-percent ratio for this year,” Rotbart said of their target to sustain the local market’s contribution to their overall transactions worldwide.
He added they plan to get onboard 2 percent of the estimated 20,000 “million dollar” networth individuals in the country by the end of 2019. At present, the company serves only “less than 1 percent” of these wealthy Filipinos.
Industry-wide, J. Rotbart & Co. also remains bullish on its expectations of the gold trade investment in the country even though it’s not yet fully developed in the Philippines. The country is still in a “very sporadic” state, where it’s very individual-based and mostly coursed through offline entities or banks overseas.
“That’s one of the reasons why we decided to come here. We like the market here because we think there’s a real need to do it and there’s a good source of physical gold here,” he said. “So what we do is just, I would say, one brick in building the infrastructure here to allow private clients [or] wealthy clients a full range of services.”
Pressed about what the Philippine government should do to help the gold business flourish in the country, the top executive cited the need to further educate the investment market, build better infrastructure, and possible tax exemption.
“We need more market education here in the Philippines, especially for potential clients who are not very familiar with physical gold,” he said. “Scrap the tax. You can’t accept to be a flourishing gold market if it’s heavily taxed. And second is infrastructure. You need vaults, you need security in place to move it around, and you need the airlines.”
J. Rotbart & Co. was established in Hong Kong in 2016. Since then, it has been expanding exponentially in portfolio and team size, while working in partnership with an international team of experts, and in accordance with the guidelines of the London Bullion Market Association, to give expert advice and professional physical metals service to a global clientele.
