Row upon row of gunmetal-grey boxes fill the floor-to-ceiling shelves of Sharps Pixley’s underground vault, concealing the glittering treasure packed inside. The vault in London is so full that the gold dealership is hunting for a site for a new one, says Giles Maber, head of UK at the company.
It is part of a global race to build vaults for precious metals from Switzerland to Singapore. This is a problem the industry doesn’t usually have — after all, gold takes up very little space, and a vault can last for hundreds of years. But the blistering rally in the gold price, which has doubled in the last three years, and accompanying surge of demand from wealthy individuals who insist on holding their gold in physical bar form, have prompted a small rush of activity in the normally sleepy vaulting sector.
At Swiss gold group MKS Pamp, chief commercial officer Omar Liess is looking to build a “substantial” vault specifically to cater to the group’s richest clients, so they can visit their gold in an elegant setting that he compares to a five-star hotel. “When people are leaving $200mn or more with us, we want to make sure we have the right infrastructure in place for them,” he says.