Graham Birch, Head of BlackRock's Natural Resources team, is currently on sabbatical from the end of March 2009 until the beginning of 2010.
In Graham's absence Evy Hambro, co-manager, will continue to manage the BGF World Gold Fund. Evy will be assisted by Richard Davis, the manager of the BlackRock Commodities Income Investment Trust plc and other members of the 14-strong Natural Resources team, of which nine are fund managers.
Evy joined the firm in 1994 and was named Investment Week’s Fund Manager of the Year for BGF World Mining in 2008. Evy and Graham have worked very closely together for 15 years and have been co-Managers of the BGF World Gold Fund since January 2002.
Evy Hambro comments on the outlook for gold:
"Gold today enjoys its time-honoured role as a physical store of wealth as confidence in other assets - private or governmental - is in doubt. A gold bar is nobody else's liability and is often reached for in periods of political and economic uncertainty. Gold is a natural place for people to turn to in these times”.
Over the short term gold always responds to what's going on in today's market - and that is what we are seeing today. But over the medium to long term the underlying supply and demand fundamentals have a bigger part to play in determining the price. Gold production fell last year and may fall further in 2009. This is partly due to the lack of exploration success by the gold mining industry which discovered 15 million ounces last year, compared with production of 80 million ounces.
On the demand side, the rising wealth of emerging economies is likely to support jewellery demand, while ongoing financial turmoil and inflationary pressures will continue to stimulate investment demand. So current trends in these fundamentals are extremely supportive for the price to trend higher."
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