 | |
| Formerly | Mocatta Bullion Mocatta & Goldsmid Mocatta Group |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Founded | 1684 |
| Founder | Moses Mocatta |
| Defunct | 2019 |
| Parent | Scotiabank |
| Website | scotiamocatta.com |
ScotiaMocatta, originally founded as Mocatta Bullion in 1684, was a precious metal and base metal trading company that operated as the metals trading division of the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) from 1997 until January 2019. [1]
ScotiaMocatta was one of the ten market-making members of the London Bullion Market Association. They were participants in the London gold fixing. Their organization had a history of 340 years, and was the only original member of the London Gold and Silver fixes to maintain seats in both associations. After the dissolution of ScotiaMocatta, Scotiabank holds those memberships.
ScotiaMocatta was formed by Scotiabank's acquisition of Mocatta Bullion from Standard Chartered Bank in 1997. They acquired it from Hambros Bank in 1973.
The company dates back to Moses Mocatta, who immigrated from Amsterdam to London where, in 1671, he established a shop for gold, silver, and diamonds, then opened an account with the English goldsmith-banker Edward Backwell (ca. 1618–1683). Moses Mocatta sent silver to India in 1676, because silver was cheaper in London than in Bombay or Shanghai. 1684, the bullion dealer and refiner ″Mocatta″ was developed to serve as a broker to the Bank of England and the East India Company in the 18th and 19th centuries. The business was re-named ″Mocatta & Goldsmid″ in 1799 after Asher Goldsmid was admitted as partner in 1787. [2]
The firm was solely controlled by the Mocatta and Goldsmid families for 286 years before they merged with Hambros Bank in 1957. Subsequent to 1957, the firm was managed by Edward Mocatta, with involvement and shareholdings variously from Hambros Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Henry Jarecki, Scotiabank, the Mocatta family, and vaguely defined 'others'. With Peter Hambro as Deputy Managing Director and Henry Jarecki as Chairman, the firm dealt in options and futures trading in precious metals and pursued bullion exchanges in Russia, the United States, South America, Switzerland, Mexico, Germany, China, Hungary, Australia, Japan, and South Africa, and became the largest gold and silver counter-party to the Soviet Union.
The Mocatta firm acts as central bankers, notably the Bank of England and the United States Treasury in market stabilisations, notably the 1913 run on the Indian Specie Bank, and the 1980 attempt by the Hunt brothers to corner the silver market.
Starting in 1986, the Luxemburg Monetary Institute issues gold coins through a Luxemburg subsidiary The Luxemburg Mint. One of their shareholders is the Mocatta group. [3]
As of 2018, ScotiaMocatta maintained offices in Toronto, New York City, London, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. [4] [1]
2018, the managing bankers controlled the activities of 160 employees in ten offices. [5]
On 18 October 2017, The Financial Times of London reported because ScotiaMocatta was an instrumental lender to Elemetal or their subsidiaries, one of whose gold refinery subsidiaries was corrupted by Peruvian narco-traffickers and thus laundered about US$3.6 billion dollars, the managing bankers attempted to sell the business through the intermediation of JPMorgan. [6]
The gold price-fixing scandal and lawsuits of 2016 were also deemed responsible for Scotiabank's review of ScotiaMocatta. [5] Two of the managing bankers of ScotiaMocatta parted ways with Scotiabank in May 2018, after Scotiabank, with JPMorgan to facilitating the sale, failed to find a buyer. [5] By June 2018, the parent reduced the money available to ScotiaMocatta for external loans, at the time numbered at US$8bn. The managing bankers terminated relationships with stand-alone clients. Another senior staff member left his employment in mid-May, while another six traders were given notice. [7] In September 2018, the Bank of Montreal hired six traders away from the failure. [8]
As a result of the January 2019 re-organization, Scotiabank stopped supplying gold to the Italian and Indian jewelry industries. Impetus for the change came from the departure of seven New York-based traders to a Canadian rival, Bank of Montreal. [1]
At the end of April 2020, the Financial Post reported that Scotiabank bankers were planning to withdraw from their remaining metals trade, including the trade with precious metals, and to wind down their existing activities in this field until the beginning of 2021. [9]
A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, such as cocoa, fruit and sugar. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investing in commodities. Commodity markets can include physical trading and derivatives trading using spot prices, forwards, futures, and options on futures. Farmers have used a simple form of derivative trading in the commodity market for centuries for price risk management.
Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Precious metals, particularly the noble metals, are more corrosion resistant and less chemically reactive than most elements. They are usually ductile and have a high lustre. Historically, precious metals were important as currency but are now regarded mainly as investment and industrial raw materials. Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium each have an ISO 4217 currency code.
The Bank of Nova Scotia, operating as Scotiabank, is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. One of Canada's Big Five banks, it is the third-largest Canadian bank by deposits and market capitalization. In 2023, the company’s seat in Forbes Global 2000 was 88. It serves more than 25 million customers around the world and offers a range of products and services including personal and commercial banking, wealth management, corporate and investment banking. With more than 92,001 employees and assets of Can$1,136 billion, Scotiabank trades on the Toronto and New York exchanges. The Scotiabank swift code is NOSCCATT and the institution number is 002.
Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes from the Anglo-Norman term for a melting-house where metal was refined, and earlier from French bouillon, "boiling". Although precious metal bullion is no longer used to make coins for general circulation, it continues to be held as an investment with a reputation for stability in periods of economic uncertainty. To assess the purity of gold bullion, the centuries-old technique of fire assay is still employed, together with modern spectroscopic instrumentation, to accurately determine its quality.
Standard Chartered plc is a British multinational bank with operations in consumer, corporate and institutional banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 90% of its profits come from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Mocatta is a surname.
The London Gold Fixing is the setting of the price of gold that takes place via a dedicated conference line. It was formerly held on the London premises of Nathan Mayer Rothschild & Sons by the members of The London Gold Market Fixing Ltd.
Johnson Matthey plc is a British multinational speciality chemicals and sustainable technologies company headquartered in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Sharps Pixley was a British bullion house. It was formed in 1957 when two private bullion partnerships merged: Sharps Wilkins, founded in 1740, and Pixley & Abell, founded in 1852. It was one of the five firms that met twice daily for the London Gold Fixing, the others being N. M. Rothschild & Sons, Johnson Matthey, Mocatta & Goldsmid, and Samuel Montagu & Co. Sharps Pixley was bought by Kleinwort Benson in 1966, largely at the behest of the Bank of England.
Kleinwort Benson was a leading investment bank that offered a wide range of financial services from offices throughout the United Kingdom and Channel Islands. Two families, the Kleinworts and the Bensons, founded two different merchant banks in London. They merged in 1961 to create Kleinwort Benson Lonsdale, later Kleinwort Benson. Following its acquisition by Société Générale in June 2016, it was merged with SG Hambros, already a subsidiary of Société Générale, to form Kleinwort Hambros in November 2016.
Silver may be used as an investment like other precious metals. It has been regarded as a form of money and store of value for more than 4,000 years, although it lost its role as legal tender in developed countries when the use of the silver standard came to an end in 1935. Some countries mint bullion and collector coins, however, such as the American Silver Eagle with nominal face values. In 2009, the main demand for silver was for industrial applications (40%), jewellery, bullion coins, and exchange-traded products. In 2011, the global silver reserves amounted to 530,000 tonnes.
The London Bullion Market Association, established in 1987, is the international trade association representing the global Over The Counter (OTC) bullion market, and defines itself as "the global authority on precious metals". It has a membership of approximately 150 firms globally, including traders, refiners, producers, miners, fabricators, as well as those providing storage and secure carrier services.
Peter Charles Percival Hambro is one of the founders of Petropavlovsk plc,, a gold mining business in Russia.
Henry George Jarecki is a German-born American academic, psychiatrist, entrepreneur, producer and philanthropist.
Andrew Maguire is a British commodities trader and whistleblower. He presented evidence to United States regulators alleging that fraud had been committed, and that prices in the international gold and silver markets had been manipulated. No regulatory or legal action has been taken as a result of his accusations.
MKS (Switzerland) SA is a trader of precious metals. Based in Geneva, the group employs approximately 1,500 workers. MKS is an associate of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), and its subsidiary PAMP has been on the LBMA’s Gold List, widely recognised in the financial services industry as the indicator of quality, since 1987.
The London bullion market is a wholesale over-the-counter market for the trading of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Trading is conducted amongst members of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), tightly overseen by the Bank of England. Most of the members are major international banks or bullion dealers and refiners.
The forex scandal is a 2013 financial scandal that involves the revelation, and subsequent investigation, that banks colluded for at least a decade to manipulate exchange rates on the forex market for their own financial gain. Market regulators in Asia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States began to investigate the $4.7 trillion per day foreign exchange market (forex) after Bloomberg News reported in June 2013 that currency dealers said they had been front-running client orders and rigging the foreign exchange benchmark WM/Reuters rates by colluding with counterparts and pushing through trades before and during the 60-second windows when the benchmark rates are set. The behavior occurred daily in the spot foreign-exchange market and went on for at least a decade according to currency traders.
PAMP SA is an independent precious metals refining and fabricating company, and a member of the MKS Group. Established in 1977 in Ticino, Switzerland, the company originally started as a minting facility for bars weighing less than 100 grams and as an alloy specialist for the jewelry and luxury watch-making industries. It has since expanded to provide a full range of services, from collecting doré from mines to assaying, hedging, and delivering its bars and other products. PAMP produces bullion bars ranging from 1 gram to 12.5 kilograms.
The London Platinum and Palladium Market (LPPM) is an over-the-counter trading centre for platinum and palladium and a commodity trading association. London has always been a centre for the research in and development of most of the platinum group metals. Trade was established in the early 20th century, typically by existing dealers of gold and silver. The LPPM has been involved in fixing the world market prices of platinum and palladium since 1989.
workers at NTR Metals allegedly "knowingly conspired to purchase gold with the intent to promote the carrying on of organised criminal activity, including illegal gold mining, gold smuggling, and the entry of goods into the US by false means and statements to US Customs, and narcotics trafficking"
