Striking gold by selling physical silver

Lee Kuan Yew's book "From Third World to First World" struck a deep chord in Gregor Gregersen, turning him not only into an avid fan of the late Mr Lee but also inspiring him to pack his bags and fly to Singapore. Originally from Germany and having lived all over Europe and the US, Mr Gregersen has garnered global experience in business intelligence and related fields.

His enthusiasm in understanding economic and social systems provided him with the insights to set the foundation stone of Silver Bullion Pte Ltd.

Mr Gregersen shares: "I was developing a banking compliance system in Frankfurt when the financial crisis hit in late 2008. At that time I saw how the markets dumped paper derivatives and rushed to get every last ounce of physical gold and silver. The fast ones knew how to protect their wealth from a financial collapse. When I later returned to Singapore and tried to buy physical silver bullion locally, there was no outlet to do so. Hence Silver Bullion was started and I was my first customer. We had no real competition back then."

After creating a local market for silver bullion in 2009, the company has sold about S$250 million of bullion so far. Known to be the oldest, largest and most reliable supplier of silver bullion in South-east Asia, it is the pioneer of 24/7 online retailing of bullion in the region.

As a member of the Singapore Bullion Market Association (SBMA), Silver Bullion was ranked the 33rd most entrepreneurial privately owned company in Singapore by KPMG and The Business Times (E50). Silver Bullion is recognised for its unique bullion storage system, transparency, large inventory holdings and for maintaining Singapore as the safest location for bullion storage.

Mr Gregersen explains: "We provide financial safety and systemic risk protection during a crisis by eliminating most financial counterparty risk, storing customer property using the best insurance available and firmly limiting jurisdiction to Singapore. We address jurisdictional, legal, auditing, authenticity and force majeure events in a way that offers the best protection possible to the customer.

"As international investors become more nervous about the financial system's solvency, they will seek the safety of physical gold and silver ownership rather than being only creditors to an overleveraged financial system. So demand for our services will increase, driven by world events."

Winning the SME 100 Award gives Mr Gregersen and Silver Bullion an opportunity to create "a positive association with gold and bullion to the public in South-east Asia", he says.

Sharing insights he has gained from Silver Bullion's success, Mr Gregersen says: "Entrepreneurship is about creating value for a certain group of people - your customers. Money and success are just by-products of creating value for somebody else. Concentrate on creating truly outstanding value, compared to your competition, and everything else will fall into place."

He adds: "Creating outstanding products or service requires passion, constant work, persistence and integrity. Seventy to 80-hour work-weeks are the norm, especially when developing a product and ensuring it is as good as possible.

"As an entrepreneur, you also need to know and leverage your comparative strengths. My background in financial software engineering and the intimate understanding of the wealth protection needs in the US and Europe give me a clarity of purpose that drives us to create solutions to address those problems. I would be hopelessly outclassed if I tried to run a restaurant however because my heart would not be in it. So do what you are good at."