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WisdomTree targets UK institutional market with latest hire

ETF promotingETF provider WisdomTree has hired a former World Gold Council (WGC) employee to head up its UK institutional sales team.

In the newly created position Nilesh Parmar will be responsible for sales and business development across the UK institutional market with an initial focus on asset managers and private banks. He will report to head of UK and Nordic sales Ravi Azad.

He joins from the World Gold Council where he was an institutional relationship manager for Emea, making the case for allocations to gold in investment portfolios.

Parmar previously held roles at Deutsche Bank and DWS working with its XTracker ETF brand.

His appointment follows WisdomTree’s launch of its Core Physical Gold ETF last year.

Gold exchange-traded products enjoyed a fruitful 2020 with 10 consecutive months of inflows and $57.1 billion of assets by end of October, according to WGC figures.

However, WisdomTree announced last month that an agreement with the Royal Mint, whereby investors in gold bullion securities could exchange their shares for gold bullion bars or coins, had been terminated after eight years.

Although the facility was designed to provide smaller, non-authorised participant investors with the confidence that they can access physical gold, it was never used in the eight years, according to WisdomTree.

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