(Bloomberg) — HSBC Holdings Plc’s head of precious metals Paul Voller has retired from the bank, one of the leading players in the global gold market, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Voller, who joined the lender in London directly from school in 1984, had led HSBC’s precious metals business from New York for the past 12 years. He retired last month, one of the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
HSBC is one of just four clearing members whose vaults underpin tens of billions of dollars a day in trades in the London gold market — along with JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS Group AG and ICBC Standard Bank Plc.
The lender says little publicly about its precious metals business. Yet its scale was laid bare in 2020, when HSBC revealed a mark-to-market loss of around $200 million in one day thanks to an extreme price dislocation between London and New York, caused by the pandemic. However, the divergence soon became an opportunity for banks such as HSBC as they shipped bullion to the US to capture the price premium — a dynamic that’s been repeated in recent months.
Voller has been a board director of the London Bullion Market Association since 2019. He once penned a letter defending London’s over-the-counter gold market as offering “unmatched flexibility.”
He has not been replaced, but the precious metals division continues to be overseen by Richard Anthony, HSBC’s head of FX eRisk & Commodities, one of the people said.
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