Recently billionaire investor John Paulson proposed the idea of a Shareholder Gold Council.
While stating that “the days of CEOs getting rich while shareholders lose has got to end,” Paulson spoke about a council that would help shareholders keep management accountable.
Certainly anything that promotes transparency and accountability in the financial industry, and especially the precious metals space is a good thing. It’s an industry that doesn’t always have the best reputation, which in many cases is often warranted.
However while Paulson’s speech reportedly focused on how there have been, “$85 billion of write-offs since 2010, much of it attributable to ill-advised mergers, while still richly rewarding chief executive officers,” personally I hope that the council might dig into the bigger issue. Which is the increasingly apparent manipulation in the paper markets that most of the mining CEO’s refuse to speak up about.
There is one exception in Keith Neumeyer, the CEO of First Majestic Silver. He’s spoken out frequently about the growing evidence and acknowledgments of manipulation, yet largely stands alone amongst his peers.
The prevailing sentiment is that the mining CEO’s don’t want to accuse their bankers of market manipulation and leave themselves liable to having their financing pulled. Which could well be true, and maybe there are also some CEOs in the space that still don’t grasp what’s being done with the paper shorting.
In either case, hopefully this is an issue that Paulson’s council can address. Especially since the miners have been losing a fortune due to the suppressed pricing, certainly any sort of resolution to this issue would make an enormous impact in the shares.
It’s a great sign to see such a high profile investor bring wider attention and interest to the metals space. Hopefully the council will have success in addressing what most precious metals holders have been waiting years for.