Few bullion dealers are prepared to admit it, but the ghost of Goldcorp still haunts the local bullion trade. More than 20 years after Goldcorp collapsed, some Kiwis are still wary of having a fling with the bling, while others won't trust anything that looks like a piece of paper instead of the real thing.
The public perception, which seems to have stuck, is that when the receivers opened Goldcorp's vaults in 1988, they found a huge amount of gold missing. Wild rumours quickly circulated about its flamboyant founder, Ray Smith, loading up fancy cars with gold bars.
In the book he later wrote about the saga, Where's the Gold?, Smith argued that it was in fact his bank, the BNZ, that depleted his gold stocks and at whom the 1600 investors who lost their money should direct their anger. He also suggested that it was the merger of the Auckland Coin and Bullion Exchange with a private property company that was the real reason for Goldcorp's demise. Read More.
