New Quasi-Competition For Gold Trust ETF (GLD, PHYS)

It looks like the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) is about to get some new competition, albeit far a far smaller trading vehicle.  A F-1 filing at the SEC was made today by Sprott Physical Gold Trust, which is going to be selling units via an initial public offering.  Be advised that this is a Canadian trust established as an Ontario trust, and it was created to invest and hold substantially all of its assets in physical gold bullion.  In short, it wants to compete against the “GLD.”  While no terms beyond a $10.00 offering price are formally listed, it noted in the filing that it will sell up to $575 million in this IPO.

The filing noted that the initial public offering price will be $10.00 per unit to investors who are prepared to invest a minimum initial subscription amount of $1,000.00.  The trust intends to file an application to list its units on the New York Stock Exchange for the ticker “PHYS” and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker “PHY”.

Underwriters are listed as Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets.  As far as how this compares in size, The SPDR Gold Trust has a market cap somewhere north of 50-times that of this new filing.

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Jon C. Ogg

Details of the filing are here at the SEC site.