Here's the full text of the email. It arrived at 15:26 today.
Not seen any mention of this on their website yet.
_________________________________________________________
Dear BullionVault user,
There is an important change concerning your gold.
BullionVault is moving to a different professional bullion market
vault operator.
There is no cause for concern. Your gold is perfectly safe and
will remain so. This letter will explain the circumstances to
you.
BRINKS INC.
There have been growing stresses on our relationship with Brinks
Inc, the US-owned vault operator, and it has become clear that
they feel uncomfortable about continuing to vault BullionVault
gold.
Why this might be so I am genuinely unable to say. Their exact
reasoning has not been disclosed to us.
Fortunately, there is an excellent alternative available to us in
ViaMat International, the largest Swiss-owned vault operator, and
one which has a full quota of internationally located
professional bullion vaults.
Swiss ownership suggests an independence from some of the
pressures which Brinks may have found themselves operating under
recently. Also you - our users - have chosen to vault 26 times as
much gold in Switzerland as in the United States, so we believe
this change will be both natural and welcome.
You will continue to have the choice of London, New York or
Zurich storage, and there will be no increase in costs to you. We
will continue to provide storage at less than a third of the
costs of most gold ETFs.
We warmly thank Brinks for looking after your gold and ours so
professionally since we first launched our service.
THE TRANSFER TO VIAMAT
BullionVault has now signed a long-term storage agreement with
ViaMat. We will soon be transferring all BullionVault gold to
ViaMat's professional vaulting facilities in each location -
London, Zurich and New York.
Your gold will be properly protected during this transfer.
Bullion shipments of this size are not at all unusual for the
companies involved, and they both accept responsibility and carry
appropriate insurance for the process.
For security reasons we are not disclosing exactly when the
transportation of bullion will take place, but it will NOT be in
the next two weeks. It is for this reason I am writing to you
today.
If you chose BullionVault because we vaulted at Brinks, then it
is only proper you should have the opportunity to exit
BullionVault before BullionVault exits Brinks.
If, on the other hand, you are satisfied with our switch to
ViaMat vaults, then you need do nothing.
Your gold will be transported between the vaults at no charge to
you. It will remain in the city of your current choice, be it
London, Zurich or New York.
Nor do you need to worry about buying or selling gold through
BullionVault during this transportation. The BullionVault service
will not be interrupted.
The strength of your legal ownership rights within ViaMat is just
as personal and permanent as it was in Brinks. In fact it is even
more clearly stated. You can read the relevant acknowledgements
of your property rights by ViaMat in our revised Terms and
Conditions (see below).
ABOUT VIAMAT INTERNATIONAL
Swiss-owned ViaMat has been operating for 62 years and is a
direct competitor of Brinks in several markets. It offers a
similar and thoroughly professional bullion-vaulting service in
the locations in which BullionVault previously employed Brinks.
ViaMat trucks perform the same cash-distribution service for the
Swiss banking industry that Brinks trucks perform in the United
States.
In the English-speaking world ViaMat is less well-known than
Brinks, but neither company self-promotes aggressively; vault
operators tend to like a low profile.
Do visit their website to learn more (www.viamat.com).
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
This change in vault operator has necessitated a re-draft of our
Terms and Conditions, previously unchanged since the BullionVault
service was launched.
The new Terms and Conditions are now available to you on our
website. Thanks to ViaMat's co-operation with us in developing
new controls on bullion withdrawals from the vault, these new
terms further improve your security as a BullionVault user.
Please note that under both sets of Terms and Conditions, you are
free at any time to end our business relationship by selling your
gold and withdrawing your money.
The new Terms and Conditions will apply from 26 May 2007. Please
be sure to read them here:
http://www.bullionvault.com/help/terms_and_conditions.htmlFEEDBACK
Please direct any questions about our new storage arrangement or
our Terms and Conditions to me here using this address:
mailto:viamat.question@BullionVault.com
FURTHER NEWS
That is the main business of this letter, but I'd also like to
take this opportunity to tell you of some further developments
here at BullionVault.
The last few months have seen major changes for us. In October,
we were joined by Adrian Ash as head of research. I know many of
you are already enjoying reading his analysis of the gold and
broader financial markets daily.
In November we expanded our equity shareholder base, and
benefited by a large cash injection from new investors. We have
been further strengthened by existing investors electing to
convert 99.5% of a convertible bond into new equity in March
2007. Together these have strengthened an already robust company
into one of the most secure financial foundations you are likely
to come across anywhere. The company now has net shareholders
funds – all held in gold and cash – sufficient to run all our
planned expanded operations for more than four years, and without
a single cent of revenue. Given current trends I believe we will
beat this cautious revenue projection!
By most measurements our business has increased by about 50% in
the last 6 months. We are still only 2 years old, but with
monthly sales around $7 million we are now comfortably the
largest in the world at what we do – enabling private buyers of
physical gold to own it directly in a professional vault in a
secure location of their choice.
In January we moved offices. Visitors are welcome by appointment.
We are in West London, at 2 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk,
London W6 0GY, UK. You can call us on our new number, +44 (0)208
600 0130.
In February we expanded the team with Italian, French and German-
speaking support staff. The expanded team is in training, prior
to our launch of multi-lingual sites. The BullionVault service is
now almost ready for launch in German and French, while Italian,
Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Polish versions are all at various
stages of planning and development.
We have an ambitious development plan covering a whole range of
improvements. Of interest to many of you is that bigger gold
buyers will soon be able to allocate ownership of specific whole
bars within BullionVault in their name.
Watch for further news on this and other developments. These are
exciting times in the gold market. Thank you again for choosing
BullionVault, where your gold remains – and will remain – as
physically safe as it could possibly be, anywhere on Earth.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Tustain
Director
www.BullionVault.com
