Who is Simon Popple?

RENOWNED INVESTMENT EXPERT & FOUNDER OF THE GOLD PROGRAM

Helping You Navigate the Gold Market with Confidence

I’m a professional investor with over 30 years of experience specialising in gold investments. I’m used by several organisations for my expertise on Gold and I sit on the Advisory Board of Resourcing Tomorrow - a major event organiser for the mining community.

I invested in Chalice Mining early and turned £5,000 into over £322,500 in less than a year. Although it’s great to make life-changing investments, I also like to make much lower risk investments. My system is all about balance.

After a long career of professional investing, I developed The Gold Program. A system that I use to invest in the sector.

My goal is to show you how to use this system and ensure you feel confident and supported every step of the way.

What My Clients Say

  • "You Won't Find a Guru with More Knowledge in This Sector"

    It’s fair and accurate to say that you’d have to go a long way to find a guru with more knowledge of the sector than Simon. But just as importantly, is his passion for the subject and his clients.

    - Greg Robinson, Knaresborough


  • "His Knowledge About Investing is Invaluable"

    I’ve worked with Simon for several years and find his knowledge about investing to be invaluable. I’m always keen to learn more about investing and have found Simon’s knowledge and guidance to be incredibly useful.

    - Priyesh Parekh, Milton Keynes


  • "He's Helped Me Make a Lot of Money"

    I’ve known Simon for over 20 years and regularly speak with him about my investment strategy. Over the years, he’s not only helped me make a lot of money but also save a lot. I thoroughly recommend his work.

    - Andrew Cadell, Burley

  • "His Insight into Investing is Very Profitable"

    I first came across Simon when he was writing “Metals and Miners” for Moneyweek. I’ve worked with him ever since, and despite having a very successful career in private equity, I’ve found that his insight into investing is not only helpful but also very profitable.

    - Vincent Smyth, Weston Super Mare


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My Journey

Despite an expensive education, I didn’t really learn much at school. Sport was a lot more important to me than exams. Lessons were spent gazing out of the window and I left with very average qualifications.

I didn’t have a passion for education. It was as simple as that.

Mum and Dad were probably wondering what the hell they’d done. They’d worked incredibly hard and spent a lot of money, but my grades weren’t great.

I used to laugh at people on the rugby or hockey pitch when they completely missed the ball or made a dumb pass. It wasn’t until they were getting paid a lot more than me that the penny finally dropped.

One of those scratch-your-head moments. I knuckled down.

I started taking my education seriously and did an MBA at Birmingham University, where I got selected as their first internship student and got sent tothe US.

I was “back on track” On the “normal” path to success.

I then worked in the Corporate Finance team at Singer & Friedlander, where I was headhunted to join the Senior Banker group at ABN AMRO. After several years, I became one of the founding members of their Financial Sponsors team within the Corporate Finance department.

Looking back, this time was very useful, because it taught me how to analyse equities and bonds. Although that was not particularly relevant to the next stage of my journey, it’s invaluable now.

Investment banking sounds great, but it was really tough. I was working incredibly long hours. Weekends and bank holidays were often spent in the office - it was brutal.

My friends in property were making a lot of money and working far fewer hours. I wanted to do that. It was a bit odd because back in the day, investment banking was viewed as the way to make your fortune. But these property guys were doing really well. Times were changing.

I decided that property was my thing.

Fortunately, my financial skills were in demand from the property market, so I was able to make the switch.

I went on to become Head of Investment Management at Strutt & Parker Real Estate Financial Services and then joined Topland (one of the world’s largest private property companies) as their youngest director.

I was considered successful. I had a Porsche, a nice house, and a good job.

Mum and Dad were proud. To be honest, I thought I was pretty successful - "All that and a cup of tea”.

Turns out – I wasn’t.

I was a director of one of the world’s largest private companies in my 30s.

Anyone looking in would have been impressed. But they didn’t see my pension statement – I kept that to myself.

On the face of it, it didn’t look too bad. But there were an awful lot of assumptions. One was about inflation, and let’s just say it was LOW. But I didn’t care. Inflation was LOW and retiring was a long way away.

I’d been brought up in a period when no-one worried about inflation, but times were changing.

I’m sure you’re constantly amazed at how much your weekly shop is. Inflation has become VERY relevant.

Fortunately, twelve years ago, I did a bit of maths.

The question was really simple: what happens to my pension if we get inflation? I crunched a few numbers (I can be a bit of a nerd), and things got really depressing.

I assumed an inflation rate of 8% over ten years. If you do this, out pops a present value factor - it was 0.463. That’s maths, not opinion. Playing with the numbers (I wanted to keep them simple), I assumed a pension pot of £1,000,000 when I retire.

Bear with me; this is the boring bit. If you multiply that pot by the present value factor (if we get 8% inflation for ten years), in today’s money, that pot would actually be worth about £463,000.

Scary, eh?

It gets worse.

If you want to try and get some protection from inflation, you can get a Retail Price Index (“RPI”) linked pension, but the RPI needs to reflect your own personal level of inflation. If the RPI is lower, you’re not really getting the protection you want. For example, if the RPI is 5% but your personal level of inflation is 10%, you’re 5% poorer.

My personal level of inflation is currently considerably higher than the headline rate.

Anyway, let’s crack on.

I used an annuity table to calculate my annual income. On the basis of buying an annuity for £463,000 (the present value of £1,000,000 in 10 years time assuming 8% inflation); then at the time of writing, your annual income (with RPI protection) I could get an income of between £18,512 and £33,028 – depending how old I was when I retired. The £33,028 was on the basis I retired at 75 years old – I hope to retire way before then.

Given the massive cost of the state pension to the country, I DON’T want to rely on that – but that’s another story.

Back to my personal pension.

I need to LIVE...not EXIST.

I had a choice. Do nothing or SOMETHING.

I chose SOMETHING.

I needed to invest in something that was going to give me a future. I wanted to LIVE….not exist.

But what should I invest in?

If inflation happened, I wanted to be ready for it.

Not only that, I wanted something that could still work for me if inflation wasn’t an issue. I already knew a lot about equities, bonds and property, but I had a missing piece to my jigsaw.

You know that nagging feeling!

After hours and hours of research and numerous conversations, the dial was firmly pointing at commodities. In particular, Gold.

Gold and inflation seemed to be inextricably linked.

I needed to understand more. I’d heard a lot about how useful gold could be to fight inflation – but I was hungry to find out more.

My problem was simple, how can I try and protect myself if we get inflation?

Although I’d already got exposure to property, bonds and equities, I did not see any of those being particularly resilient to inflation.

The more I looked, the more convinced I believed commodities (in particular gold) were the answer. I wanted to both make money AND protect myself from inflation.

All this research took time and I could not do both that as well as my well-paid job.

I needed a nudge. It was not long before I got it.

I was attending an event that had cost several thousand pounds for the ticket.

I felt I was punching above my weight because there were some real “high rollers” there.

I got talking to some guy about my idea. He was an old guy, with short silver hair and the kind of face that beamed experience. I got the feeling he knew what he was talking about. I passed him a drink (it was the kind of event where they were free!) and took him through my thought process. He listened intently, occasionally challenging me on the odd point. When I’d finished, he nodded and simply said,

”Makes perfect sense, do it.”

I stood there, open mouthed. He turned around, gave me a thumbs up and I watched him walk towards his helicopter and fly off.

Blimey.

Talking to someone had really helped. I not only got the feeling he knew what he was talking about, but he’d probably also made a lot of money. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

I was running out of excuses not to do it.

I’d got my nudge.

When I got back to the office, I packed in my job. People thought I was mad. To be honest, there were times when I’d be inclined to agree with them.

Back then, I was still raking in well over £100,000 a year – that’s probably closer to £300,000 now (it was 17 years ago). If things didn’t work out, I was sure I could get something else. But it was a big leap of faith.

Anyway, I did more research and started investing.

This is when it got interesting. First of all, although I did well, I made mistakes.

The main one being investing in companies because someone thought it was a good idea….it was basically a “tip”. Tips are great when things work out, but when they don’t, whoever gave it to you rarely does more than shrug their shoulders and occasionally say “sorry”. I later found out they didn’t have a clue about what they were talking about. It would have been rejected very quickly if I’d put it through my system.

Which is what I set about building. I’d built financial models before but this was different. I needed a process that was both rigorous and easy to follow.

It had to give me some rules and strategies for investing. Importantly, I needed to remove the emotion.

That system is called The Gold Program.

Although it took a long time to put together it’s surprisingly simple. You get a list of companies to choose from, but more importantly, I tell you the criteria you should use to make your selections. A list is one thing, but you need to know how to use it!

If you want to follow its performance, then look on The Gold Program tab where I picked two portfolios from random using it. I will regularly update the performance.

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