Mark & Eileen Turnock who live in Devon are particularly concerned with market volatility, both current and future. Mark’s vision of retiring and enjoying life with his family has prompted him to remove exposure from the equity market with Aviva and invest in physical gold through his pension with The Pietra Sussan Company. Mark and Eileen much like other client case studies who have purchased physical gold do so in order to protect their wealth. You can see from the interview below what motivated Mark and Eileen to purchase physical gold through a pension and their experience when purchasing.
Questions:
Q: Where do you live? What’s your occupation and age?
A: My wife and I live in Clovelly a small North Devon Fishing Village I own my own business Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning and Eileen (my wife ) owns a Tea shop with her mother in Clovelly
Q: Is this the first time you have bought gold? If not, when did you buy previously?
A: I have bought gold before by the gram and quickly realised it was an expensive way of buying gold.
Q: Why did you think gold could be a good investment?
A: My private pension was coming to fruition and I started to look around for an investment, and soon started to realise that the whole world economy was on a decline and within the next few years I could see that big changes are going to occur even before Brexit. With interest rates so low there doesn’t seem to be many safe alternatives to gold.
Q: What’s the reasoning behind your choice to buy gold?
A: I thought that gold would be a safe haven for my pension and also found that gold would go up when the world economy was in crisis. Looking back to the 2008 crisis the gold price went up significantly and could see similarities with the economy now.
Q: Have you seen the value of your pension decline? By how much?
A: My pension doubled in the last 8 years but in the last 12 months it stood still after the China crisis and thereafter it started to decline.
Q: Have you been affected by lower annuity rates or by investment declines in your pension portfolio?
A: Yes – the China crisis has negatively affected my pension. Lower annuity rates would have been terrible for our retirement. The lower interest rates means that we just can’t leave our pension in cash as it would earn nothing.
Q: How do you believe an investment in gold will mitigate these impacts?
A: Gold is a safe haven and as the world economy is in turmoil gold we believe it will only go up in price.
Q: What are you most worried about and how do you think gold can protect you?
A: Brexit and negative interest rates concern us. There seems to be a lot of change within the world at the moment and notwithstanding the US elections, Europe is going to have a very bumpy road ahead. I am aiming to retire and sell my business and looking to keep the Gold for 3 to 5 years and then take the profits as the world economy corrects itself and the price of gold will stabilise.
Q: How did you decide which UK gold dealer to use and would you recommend them to others?
A: I looked around for about 3 Months locally and on the internet speaking to over 10 different gold companies then I came across The Pietra Sussan Company, I called them and by chance spoke to Joshua Saul the owner and we spoke for over 30 minutes and decided to look into the company and Joshua. I found that Joshua had solid credentials and found him on Bloomberg TV, and found his business was sound. I then called Joshua back a few days later and found that as he answered the phone to me in the first instant then he would be my contact within The Pietra Sussan Company for good. I found him very accommodating and enlightening about Gold and he listened to what I was looking to do with my pension and helped me to release my funds from Aviva which Joshua helped me greatly and saved me £1,500 as Aviva was slow to release the funds as Gold went up in price and Aviva agreed a settlement with The Pietra Sussan Companies assistance.
Q: How much gold did you buy?
A: I invested my Pension funds into gold
Q: What format (bars, coins etc) and why?
A: 25% in gold coins and 75% in SIPPS physical gold
Q: Will you store it yourself or have it held in a vault?
A: We have it held in a vault at Loomis International created for us by The Pietra Sussan Company.
