Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with Symposium Managing Director, Kerry StevensonCarolyn Herbert: Hello I’m Carolyn Herbert from the Finance News Network and joining me from Symposium, to discuss the upcoming 2016 Precious Metals Investment Symposium is Managing Director, Kerry Stevenson. Kerry, welcome back.
Kerry Stevenson: Nice to see you Carolyn.
Carolyn Herbert: Can you start by telling us a bit about the Precious Metals Investment Symposium coming up this October?
Kerry Stevenson: We’re coming into our seventh year and as most people would know, it is a great event for investors and the industry, to all come together. And I call it - it’s almost from dirt to coin, so it’s getting the mining industry together, the bullion industry, the refiners and the investors. So it’s the whole ecosystem if you like, of people that are interested in precious metals. So it’s a first event like it in Australia, we’ve been running it now for seven years and it’s got quite a following. So we’re pretty excited about this year.
Carolyn Herbert: We’ve seen a remarkable recovery in the price of precious metals, namely gold and silver over the past 12 months. So what’s the consensus outlook for the price of precious metals going forward?
Kerry Stevenson: There’s been a lot of talk about precious metals going rapidly, increasing in value. I look at it in a different way. I look at precious metals as an investment part of your portfolio; it’s almost like an insurance. If you look at gold over the past 40 years, it’s gone up on average nine per cent every year. And if you look at equities and other investment vehicles, it hasn’t had the same I guess, increase in value over time.
So I say to people, don’t sell your house and your children, but you should certainly understand about investing in precious metals. Whether that be via equities or ETFs, or physical bullion, but you should have an understanding of it. And that’s what the event’s all about. It’s about educating people about having precious metals as part of your portfolio, and that’s really important I think.
Carolyn Herbert: Looking at the line-up, which companies will be participating and who are some of the keynote speakers?
Kerry Stevenson: We’ve got a great line-up of keynote speakers this year Carolyn. We’ve got people such as Jayant Bhandari; he’s an author and a futurist. He won’t be specifically talking about precious metals. He’s looking more I guess, from a macro economic situation for investment. What’s happening in the world today, it’s volatile and what people can expect to be wary of I guess. He looks at Australia as a very safe place to be and a great place to invest. So he’s coming over from Canada.
We’ve got people coming over from India.
I’m very excited as well to announce for the very first time that we’ll have the Shanghai Gold Exchange, coming over to talk to the Australian investors about what they’re doing. That’s a very interesting talk that we’ll be hearing from them as well, so that’s exciting. From a company point of view, companies such as Evolution Mining Limited
(ASX:EVN), Regis Resources Limited
(ASX:RRL), they’re some of the bigger end, they’re producers. But we’ve also got the developers, such as Blackham Resources Limited
(ASX:BLK) and in fact I think as I speak to you now, they’ve just poured their first gold. And then some of the explorers, in the silver as well as the gold space - pretty exciting.
Carolyn Herbert: So with such a range of speakers, what can people expect to learn?
Kerry Stevenson: I’m really passionate about the people, mum and dads through to self-managed superfunds, the brokers etc. finding out about why they should be investing in precious metals. And why it’s an important part of people’s portfolios.
Carolyn Herbert: In previous years you’ve had a dinner, a guest speaker and a surprise event. What do you have up your sleeve for this year?
Kerry Stevenson: We’ve got the Gala Awards Dinner on Tuesday the 11th of October, and I find that’s a really important part of the event. Why is that? We have three awards, we’re introducing a new one this year. We have the Gavin Thomas Mining Award and Gavin Thomas, as everybody would know, was a wonderful character in the mining industry. And we celebrate the life of Gavin, who passed away in 2014, by an award. For somebody who has powered through some tough times and is running a great event, it can be an individual or a company.
We also have the Maggie Bullion Award, which is named after Cheryl Holt, who did some amazing things in the physical bullion market, gave great customer service over her time. And I’m proud to announce that this year we’re also having a Hall of Fame Award. That will be for an individual, who over a lifetime has given a lot back to the industry. So during the dinner, there’ll be a couple of surprises, I’m not going to let all of them out now, but it’s going to be a great night.
Carolyn Herbert: Finally Kerry. Where can you find out more information about the event?
Kerry Stevenson: Well if they haven’t heard about it now, I’ll be surprised. But symposium.net.au, they can look that up on the website, we’ve got everything on our website. They can give me a call at Symposium and I’m sure they could get in touch with Finance News Network, and find out where it is.
Carolyn Herbert: Kerry Stevenson, thanks for the update and good luck with the event.
Kerry Stevenson: Thanks very much for having me.
Ends
