A London wealth manager, Ruffer, cashed out $1 billion in profits in less than six months, and is ready to make more Bitcoin trades in the future. This asset manager made a Bitcoin investment of $600 million in November 2020 and has come out on top with more than $1 billion in profits.
Hamish Baillie, an investment director at the London-based asset management firm spoke to The Times and disclosed news of Ruffer closing its Bitcoin position with more than $1.1 billion in the month of April. From the interview with The Times, the investment director reiterated that: “When the price doubled we took some profits for our clients in December and early January. We actively managed the position and by the time we sold the last tranche in April the total profit was slightly more than $1.1 billion.”
According to Baillie, Ruffer came out among the pioneer fund managers that were ready to buy BTC in a rare short-term investment for the company. During the month of November when the investment was made, Bitcoin had just gone above $15,000 and was rallying to beat the $20,000 highs set in 2017.
Baillie noted that there was a late parabolic price rally for Bitcoin in 2020 and this can be attributed to the United States giving stimulus payouts to its citizens and also the pandemic lockdown. He added that Ruffer decided to sell its holdings partly because younger investors were looking for greener pastures away from crypto trading with the lockdowns coming to an end.
With the profits made on this BTC trade, the firm is keen on venturing into other ‘protective’ assets like inflation-linked government bonds. Regardless of crypto enthusiasts seeking new investment opportunities, Baillie is confident that major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Ruffer, will still buy Bitcoin, insisting that another purchase has not been ruled out:
If you have a multi-asset strategy then things that behave in different ways are really helpful. There’s no point being multi-asset if all your different assets move with the same dynamics.
There are other large financial institutions that have been dabbling in crypto other than Ruffer; data published on Bitcointreasuries.org suggests that there are 36 publicly traded firms whose balance sheets hold BTC.
Of all the publicly traded firms invested in Bitcoin, only six of them are down on their position, this amounts to about 16% of the publicly traded companies. Seetee, Meitu, and Nexon are among the six bottom firms. The top three firms are MicroStrategy, Tesla, and Square, with $5.2 billion worth of BTC sitting between them.
Image by eko pramono from Pixabay
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