Jake Klein: The West is ill-prepared for what lies ahead and the gold price reflects this

Jake Klein could be accused of having perfect timing. More than 30 years ago, Klein chose to leave the prosperous environment of investment banking to enter the notoriously volatile and unpredictable gold sector. 

The move was a master stroke. Klein went on to build two of the largest gold companies listed on the ASX, making shareholders and himself millions along the way.

Klein grew up in South Africa. He took the safe path of studying accounting in Cape Town. He followed his ambition by breaking into the finance industry. As the economic environment changed in South Africa, he made the decision to head for Australia where he eventually ended up working at Macquarie Bank.

Klein never held an ambition to devote his working hours to the precious metal. That suddenly changed when his interest in the burgeoning Chinese economy saw him join Sino Gold Mining. A pioneering company, Sino bought mines in China. Using Australian know-how, Klein and his team developed them into valuable assets.

In 2009, the company decided to sell to Canadian group Eldorado Gold for $2.2 billion. Not satisfied, Klein secured a shell company called Conquest. Later he would name it Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN).

Picking up assets that bigger companies thought could not be developed, Klein sought to prove them wrong. He branched out across Australia and into Canada. Today, Evolution has a market value of around $16 billion, and the gold price is hovering around all-time highs at US$3,300 an ounce.

In this episode of Success and More Interesting Stuff, Klein provides his unique perspective on why gold is trading at record levels and the insights he gained from building gold mining companies from the ground up.

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