The Private Reserve
Strategy Brief

The client is a principal in an operating business with concentrated private equity, a long-held public-markets portfolio under third-party management, and a previously-held position in physically-backed gold ETFs held in a brokerage account. The stated purpose of this engagement is to build a directly-owned physical precious-metals reserve sized against the broader balance sheet and positioned as a non-exposure layer — a reserve, not a trading position, and held independently of existing brokerage and custody relationships.

The reserve is not intended to replace the existing allocation structure at the exposure layers. It is intended to establish a base-asset layer that is not a claim on any of the counterparties currently present elsewhere in the balance sheet. Allocation sizing, custody architecture, and titling structure are framed against this purpose in the sections that follow.

The client has not requested advice on the composition of any layer other than the reserve layer. The Office’s scope is limited to the reserve layer accordingly.

The Office does not prescribe a single allocation figure for the reserve layer, nor a single mix of metals. It frames both as considered bands — the size band against the concentration, liquidity, horizon, and jurisdictional profile of the client’s broader balance sheet; the mix against the client’s preferences for divisibility and exposure to the platinum-group metals complex.

For this engagement, the considered size band is framed against the Ibbotson body of work on long-horizon correlation properties, the published behavior of central-bank holders, and the client’s own stated intent to separate the reserve from the exposure layers. The band is presented alongside the tradeoffs at each end — smaller reserves preserve more capital for operating and exposure use; larger reserves trade that capital for a deeper non-counterparty base.

For the mix, the Office proposes a gold-dominant allocation — approximately 75% gold, 20% silver, and up to 5% platinum-and-palladium. Gold is dominant for structural reasons: the deepest monetary record across multi-century horizons, the consistent preference of central-bank institutional holders (fifteen consecutive years of net purchases at the time of writing), and the deepest liquidity across the full range of reserve-scale holdings. Silver is proposed as a secondary monetary metal — a complementary non-counterparty exposure with its own supply-demand dynamics and its own institutional holding history. Platinum and palladium are named as optional for clients with specific reasons to want exposure to the platinum-group metals complex; they are priced and cleared on different supply-demand fundamentals than gold and silver. The operational implications of any mix — storage, documentation, and exit mechanics — are handled in §04 (form) and §07 (exit posture), not here.

The size and mix decisions within the bands are the client’s, made in coordination with existing investment, legal, and tax counsel. The brief documents the reasoning so the decisions are made with the analysis on the page rather than against a number.

For this engagement the Office proposes an allocated, segregated custody architecture built across a three-facility panel: the Utah-based Precious Metals Vault and institutional depository holdings at Brinks and IDS (International Depository Services). All metals at all three facilities are fully allocated, fully segregated, and fully insured under all-risk coverage (typically Lloyd’s-underwritten). The Utah-based facility offers two practical advantages — typically a better storage rate, and faster sale execution because the metal is already held there. The specific facility or combination of facilities is selected with client input in the consultation that follows; tradeoffs across the panel — facility characteristics, withdrawal terms, operational cadence, and fee schedule — are named in the brief.

The metal is titled directly to the client at each facility. The depository provides storage under its own agreement; the client holds direct ownership of specific, identifiable product. Allocated and segregated is a structural distinction, not a marketing adjective: specific, individually identifiable bars are designated to the client and held apart from any other holder’s metal — not a fractional claim against a commingled pool, and not a share of gold weight tracked against undifferentiated vault inventory. The client’s depository holdings statement names the bars by serial number (for Good Delivery and kilo bars) and by product, weight, fineness, and lot number (for sovereign bullion coin and retail-grade bar formats). The agreement defines the conditions of withdrawal, transfer, and access.

For clients who choose to hold a small additional portion of the reserve physically at their own location — outside the three-facility panel — the brief names the product-form constraints appropriate to non-institutional custody and flags the P&C insurance questions for the client’s broker or counsel. This option is available but is rarely the majority of the reserve for engagements at this scale.

Product selection is a function of the intended holding period, the expected exit path, and the depository’s allocation practices. For this engagement the Office proposes a majority weighting in Good Delivery large bars for the depository portion — the most efficient form per ounce for institutional custody and the deepest exit liquidity at scale — and a minority weighting in kilo bars and sovereign bullion coin formats for divisibility and optional non-depository suitability.

Source is a component of the form specification, not an afterthought. The Office sources through direct counterparty relationships with the top-tier Swiss refiners — Argor-Heraeus, MKS PAMP, and Valcambi — facilities that between them refine a dominant share of the world’s LBMA Good Delivery investment-grade gold and that serve as primary counterparties to central-bank institutional holders. The refiner is named on the bar and in the documentation chain. Provenance is traceable, not abstract.

Numbered Good Delivery and kilo bars are documented by serial number and weight on the depository holdings statement. Sovereign bullion coins and retail-grade bars are documented by product, weight, fineness, and lot number. The distinction is operational: individually numbered product has a per-bar record; retail-grade product has a product-and-lot record. Both are titled to the client. The reserve contains no numismatic, semi-numismatic, proof, or "exclusive" coinage — institutional-grade bullion only, by design.

The brief names the spread expectations between formats under normal and stressed market conditions, so the cost structure of the chosen mix is visible before implementation rather than discovered at exit.

Titling is the section most often decided in coordination with the client’s estate-planning counsel. The Office proposes a titling framework; the selection among options is made with the client’s attorney, who is best positioned to read the choice against the client’s existing trust and estate structure.

For this engagement the Office proposes titling the depository portion to a revocable trust structure already in place for the client’s broader non-operating assets, with the private-hold portion titled individually or jointly per the client’s preference. The effect of the proposed structure on probate, on step-up basis treatment, on transfer at death, and on state-level reporting is outlined in the brief for the attorney’s review. The decision remains the client’s.

The brief names the questions that the Office is not positioned to answer — questions that belong to the attorney and the tax advisor — rather than assuming them.

Implementation proceeds in a documented sequence: depository account opening and titling setup; acquisition pricing window and execution; in-bound shipping and vault receipt; depository holdings statement issuance; and assembly of the complete documentation chain — invoices and trade records, titling agreement, depository storage agreement, summary of the depository’s all-risk coverage, and the bar-by-bar holdings statement.

For this engagement the Office expects the sequence to complete over a window of approximately four to eight weeks, with the acquisition execution itself consolidated into a shorter window once pricing criteria are met. The timing is set by the client; the Office coordinates against the timeline and reports at each stage.

Every step is documented. The documentation chain is the artifact the client retains.

The exit is a section of the brief, not an afterthought. For this engagement the Office identifies the initial buyback counterparty for each product format, names a second-opinion sale pathway so the client is not single-threaded on a single buyer, describes the spread expectations in normal and stressed market conditions, and identifies the triggers that would cause the exit plan to be re-opened for review.

The exit posture is written against the actual form of the reserve — Good Delivery large bars have a different exit path from kilo bars, which have a different exit path from retail-grade product. Each is specified so the cost and speed of exit is known in advance of any dislocation that would make the question urgent.

Exit planning is reviewed annually as part of the ongoing review cadence, with revisions documented alongside the original section.

Every brief ends with a list of open questions — questions the Office is not positioned to answer and that belong to the client’s counsel, the client’s investment advisor, or the client themselves.

For this engagement the open questions include: the final selection between the two candidate depositories, pending a direct conversation between the client and each; the titling choice between the proposed trust structure and an alternative individual-titled structure, pending the attorney’s review; and the confirmation of the desired size within the considered allocation band, pending the client’s own decision.

The brief is not considered complete until the open questions have been named. They are not a deficit; they are the visible boundary of what the brief does and the visible entry-point for the people whose advice is needed for the next decision.