A remarkable but little noticed development has occurred behind the scenes of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) over the last 3 years. This development concerns the very high level of executive staff turnover at World Gold Trust Services, the New York based ‘Sponsor’ of the mammoth gold GLD gold-backed Exchange Traded Fund that is listed on the NYSE.

For within the space of less than 3 years, World Gold Trust Services has gone through 4 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and 3 Chief Financial Officers (CFOs). By any standard this is a huge amount of senior executives moving through the roles, and would normally ring alarm bells in the corporate governance departments of major institutional investors. Perhaps it has caused concern among institutional investors of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), but if it has, it has gone unreported.