A Sound Money Opportunity Zone Investing Strategy, With Josh Phair

Unlike more traditional Opportunity Zone Funds that focus on real estate, The Wyoming Reserve is centered around a secure vault operation that holds precious metals, specifically gold and silver, in an Opportunity Zone in Casper, Wyoming.

In this sponsored fireside chat, Josh Phair, CEO of The Wyoming Reserve, discusses what makes The Wyoming Reserve truly unique among Opportunity Zone investments.

Episode Highlights

  • The benefits of being located in a foreign trade zone in Casper, Wyoming.
  • The many tax advantages of The Wyoming Reserve, including the Opportunity Zone (OZ) incentive as well as the Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) structure.
  • How The Wyoming Reserve offers an alternative to traditional portfolios.
  • How The Wyoming Reserve is positioned as a “sound money” investment amid global and economic uncertainty.
  • The ways in which The Wyoming Reserve is actively expanding its operations, including armored transport services and partnerships with government and institutional clients.

Guest: Josh Phair, The Wyoming Reserve

About The Opportunity Zones Podcast

Hosted by OpportunityZones.com founder Jimmy Atkinson, The Opportunity Zones Podcast features guest interviews from fund managers, advisors, policymakers, tax professionals, and other foremost experts in the Opportunity Zones industry.

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Show Transcript

Jimmy: Welcome. I’m Jimmy Atkinson, from OpportunityDB.com. I’m joined today by Josh Phair, of the Wyoming Reserve, and we’re coming to you from Casper, Wyoming, which is in an Opportunity Zone, and the Wyoming Reserve is an Opportunity Zone Fund, Josh, but it’s a lot different than a lot of other Opportunity Zone Funds, right? There’s no real estate that investors are investing in here. It’s a completely different animal. Can you tell me about how is this differentiated from so many other different types of Opportunity Zone investment vehicles?

Josh: Correct. I don’t know the exact number, but I’m guessing 90-plus percent of OZ Funds have to do with real estate. So, when it comes to the tax advantages, that entity, or the fund, has to be in tangible physical property. In this OZ, the tangible physical property is the actual vault, and our balance sheets consist of gold and silver. So, that is the tangible physical metal, that’s held as inventory, and is always turning, but it’s always on our balance sheets.

Jimmy: We’re gonna talk to you a lot more about that as this fireside chat unfolds, but just to step back a little bit, to zoom out, I’d love to get a little bit more of your background. Where did you get started? How did you end up here in Casper, Wyoming?

Josh: Sure. So, I’ve been doing something in the precious metals or mining space for 20-plus years. So, it started off doing corporate risk management for some of the world’s largest gold, copper, and silver mining companies. I handled all sorts of things, from trade credit, to political risk, to managing their metals in transit, from mines to refineries, all over the world, Latin America, Africa. Fell in love with the metals space, and started a company called Scottsdale Mint, in roughly 15, almost 16 years ago now. Scottsdale Mint today produces for 20-plus foreign governments and central banks. So, it actually produces the gold and silver legal tender coins for those countries. Also produces products for several hundred bullion and coin shops all over the world.

Jimmy: And as I mentioned, we’re coming to you from Casper, Wyoming. It’s a little bit of a remote location here, in Casper. So, a question for you. Why Wyoming, and why Casper specifically, for this location?

Josh: Sure. So, as I mentioned, I’m the founder, CEO of Scottsdale Mint. And during the pandemic, we got really busy. We really expanded. And we work and partner with vaults all around the world. And I’ve always admired some of the other countries, some of their freeports, and their creative use of taxation for their investors. And so, if you look to what some of the economic zones in Dubai, Singapore, Geneva, Panama, some of these other structures are quite interesting. And in the U.S., there really wasn’t a lot. And that led me to look for special economic zones here in the United States. Even though the U.S. has problems, the rest of the world perhaps has even more problems. And so I wanted to do something here in the United States, but find a safe haven, both in a state where I can be in a good place, that supports commodities, and have good workforce, and a wonderful place that’s really not New York City, let’s put it that way. So, most of the gold right now is held in London and New York City. And so, right now, they’re struggling with, as more and more gold is going into storage, it’s not the best geographic diversity, especially as we’re seeing European conflict expand right now. So, we’re seeing metal start to come back to the United States. And Wyoming’s a great place, for a lot of reasons.

Jimmy: Yeah. So, what are some of those reasons? Why is Wyoming special compared to New York, or any other state in the United States, for this type of business, for a vault that stores this type of precious metal?

Josh: Sure. So, I really wanna look at if I’m gonna expand the company, and start a new one as well, where’s the best setup for the next decade? And the state of Wyoming is ranked the number one sound money state in the country. And what that means is, there’s a ranking system, balances the taxation, the treasury, and the expenditures of a state. So, that means, for a company, it means stable. It means that it’s stable. There’s only a half million people. And so the state manages over $30 billion on its balance sheets, with a half million people. And it manages a mineral trust, that if it was a sovereign wealth fund, it’d be a top-20 in the world. So, again, what that means is they support commodities, they like commodities. And so here, also, is a foreign trade zone. So, not only is it an OZ, which we’re gonna talk about, but it’s a foreign trade zone too. So, this was a wonderful combination to put together, and we’re, have recruited an armored company, is probably gonna hopefully be moved in by the end of the year, and working here, and leasing space here, with dispatch and trucks on-site, to service our customers, along with some of the government down in Colorado. So, we’re very much excited about the opportunity for Wyoming. The other thing is, is the economic benefit. As an OZ, you have to provide economic benefit. So, being here as a, we would call this a precious metals hub, and this is, we’re got manufacturing, vaulting, distribution, that’s going on here.

Jimmy: And the investment opportunity here, there is a lot of exposure to precious metals, to gold and silver, but it goes beyond that. It goes into the gold and silver economy. We’ll talk a little bit more about that a little bit later on during the conversation today. But wanted to turn our attention back toward this as an Opportunity Zone investment. And it’s, as many of you may know, the vast majority of Opportunity Zone investments are real estate, as we pointed out, mostly multifamily. This isn’t real estate. And so, you know, we’re, as real estate depends a lot on demand, a lot on rent rolls, a lot on rent rate increases, and it’s got a lot of a different exposure to interest rate risk. It’s very interest rate-sensitive. How is this different than real estate? Is it sensitive to real estate, the same risks that real estate are sensitive to, the same types of interest rate sensitivity? Or is it completely different?

Josh: It’s completely different. And I think that provides a very unique opportunity for those to diversify. Probably the best way to look at the Wyoming Reserve is it’s really, it’s three things. It’s, has tax advantages, it’s a vault operation, and it’s got precious metals on its balance sheet. Those three things, if you can kind of wrap your head around it, and we can kind of talk about the different buckets, but, in the end, it also could be somewhat comparable to a self-storage facility, where someone is developing out a site, to hopefully attract people to bring their used furniture, their belongings while they’re moving, and then they charge them, right, a rate per month.

Our vault does third-party vaulting. That could be sovereign governments, banks, refineries, institutional accounts, high-net-worth investors, other bullion dealers around the world that need storage programs. And realistically, at the end of the day, we provide a physically-armed facility, that can provide the insurance that it takes to get into the billions of dollars. So, as capital comes in, whether we’re raising $50 million or $500 million, as that capital comes in, it goes into 90-plus percent in physical metal. like some of the silver bars that are sitting here right now. So, our balance sheet has to have 90-plus percent, according to the IRS.

Also, we get the potential appreciation on those assets. So, gold is considered a Tier 1 asset. It’s the only asset on the balance sheet of the central banks, outside of their own currencies that they create, out of thin air. But what’s nice about it is, if you’re a believer that you need to diversify into something more of a sound money, this is the ultimate sound-money asset. And as the world hits some gyrations and some concerns, this is the type of thing that’s really growing. And I’d like to definitely throw it out there that this is not a real estate play. So, as that capital comes into the Reserve fund, it goes directly into physical precious metals, into the vault. Currently, it’s a small staff, so we’re not talking huge investment dollars into anything other than the physical metal.

Jimmy: Right, the dollars that come in through the fund aren’t going toward real estate development. We did a site tour of the vault. It’s an incredible vault facility here in Casper, Wyoming, within this building. And you can get a link to watch that full site tour in the description of this video. Josh, I wanna turn now to your worldview. Can you express to me what you think of the current political climate, the current economic climate, and what is the bull case for gold and silver, and other precious metals, in investors’ portfolios?

Josh: I had many, many businesses, public companies, private companies, private equity companies. I had to make a decision in life. Do I think that this story is early-stage or late-stage? And I view this as we’re still in the early stages of what is now a secular bull market in precious metals. Again, this is my personal opinion. And we’re early-stage. Even though gold just hit an all-time high, it’s, from my take, is we’re just about to start breaking out from it. So, as you start looking at it, and why I was looking at this three years ago, is our governments are not very trustworthy, in the eyes of the citizens. And that goes all over the world. So, I’d say the distrust of politicians is probably the number one driver for precious metals in the world right now. And because of the distrust, it also goes down to banks. And so, as people start looking at assets, we even saw companies like Tesla amend their SEC bylaws, to include gold bullion on their balance sheets. So, that’s something to watch and monitor. And so, why are central banks, who control everything in the world, why are they adding gold at historic rates? And we’re seeing central banks, like the one in Singapore, they’ve not bought gold in over 30 years, and they just started, very rapidly. So, I think, as I see it, it’s up and to the right. We may have some pauses or some dips in between. But as we continue to inflate, we’re in a monetary experiment at this point. It was illegal to own gold in the United States until Richard Nixon completely cut the tie in the early 1970s. So, we’re just over 50 years of private ownership allowed in gold. And I wanted to create a company, in a great state, that people could invest in, with tax advantages. And you can imagine why I’m so excited about this.

Jimmy: Yeah, and gold and silver, other precious metals, particularly gold and silver, though, they’re inflation-resistant. They’re said to be recession-resistant as well. We haven’t officially hit that recession yet. But is that something that’s on the minds of your investors?

Josh: Sure. I think, you know, we’ve been in a, if we go back to, let’s say the first three years of Trump’s term as president, right, real estate was great, stock market was great, and then the pandemic hit. At that point, I personally view it as that event changed the world. Very similar to how 9/11 changed the world, and how we relate. And if you look, we’re going into, essentially, from my view, a two-economy system, where certain countries are not gonna be able to trade together anymore. Unfortunately, I would say the uncertainty of where we’re headed in the world just says, you know, the overall direction, there’s only so much gold out there in the world, and it’s being added on the balance sheets. And it’s been around every civilization. It’s mentioned, I don’t know, a couple hundred times, even in the Bible. So, this has been something that’s been treasured and valued. No matter what civilization rises and falls, it resets itself.

And so I think what we’re seeing is, as we’re entering into a decade where they’re calling it, there’s a great reset coming, or a financial reset, we don’t know exactly what that means. But if we look at it, it means that we have so many unfunded liabilities with the United States. How do we pay for all these things? And all the politicians, not only in the U.S., but in other countries, we just keep kicking the can down the road. And at some point, that reset is going to have to happen. And at that point, could certain currencies become incredibly devalued just overnight? And we’ve seen that. I’d say, like, the German population, some of the elderly have seen two different currency collapses overnight. And that culture is a great example of, I would say, it’s very traditional in Germany for people there to buy gold and silver with every paycheck, because they don’t necessarily trust the Euro per se. So, we’re definitely entering a time of uncertainty. The stock market. How do you value a company now? And if you look at, even though it’s been up over the last little bit, it’s been only a few companies that are really driving a lot of those indexes. So, yeah. We’re facing difficult times. And I think, you know, for those that are needing a little diversification, you know, traditionally, a financial advisor’s recommending, you know, a mixture of stocks and some bonds. Gold, for 50 years, just surpassed the performance of bonds. And so that’s something that most people have in their portfolio somewhere. I’m going to guess that the overwhelming majority probably don’t have any exposure to precious metals, and probably might not have enough.

Jimmy: Yeah, I think the typical middle class investor probably has exposure to stocks and bonds. Like you mentioned, the 60/40 portfolio’s pretty much the standard. But, some of them have exposure to real estate, maybe some other types of alternatives, but probably not a lot do have gold and silver exposure, or if they do, it’s probably not a very large amount.

Josh: No, and there’s definitely some market inefficiencies in precious metals. You know, I kind of laugh. Oftentimes, when a person calls their financial advisor and says, “Hey, how do I buy gold?” they talk them out of it, because they don’t want that capital leaving their firm. And so, oftentimes, I mean, I’m in the physical market, you know, most of precious metals are self-directed. It’s just someone saying, “Hey, I’m gonna pull out money out of, from my stock broker, from my bank, and I’m gonna put it in a physical metal. And so, that’s very, very common. And so, the Wyoming Reserve actually is also working with the broker-dealer community to offer this product. And so, this is gonna be sold through the broker-dealer community. That’s something new. We’re already on the Pershing custodial platform. I think Charles Schwab is pending. So, this is something that, you know, you’re gonna see financial advisors presenting to people, to offer. But realistically, yeah, people don’t know, how do I buy gold? How do I know it’s real? Where do I store it? How is it insured? What do I do when I wanna sell it? What happens down the road? You know, how do I know this is real, and how do I get cash out of it? And so, those things are very real, and I think the Wyoming Reserve is able to provide a solution for its stock investors, and also its third-party vaulting customers as well.

Jimmy: So, there’s a lot of different types of investors out there, a lot of different types of investor personas, depending on where they are in their life, what their risk tolerance is. What types of investors does this fund, does this facility, this operating business, the Wyoming Reserve, appeal to?

Josh: Sure. So, I’ll definitely mention, the stock investment needs to be an accredited investor. So, this probably appeals to those that need some diversification, from either real estate, stocks, bonds. Maybe they even have just cash sitting in a bank over the last few years, and they don’t know what to do with it. And so, really, we kind of appeal to various types. And we offer liquidity, reporting. We’re audited, and we’ll definitely get into more of that.

Jimmy: Good. So, if I’m someone who’s seeking diversification, or maybe I’m somebody who is interested in the tax efficiency, like, I think this might be a worthwhile play that I’d like to talk with my advisor about, of course. But what other types of investors do you typically see? What other types of investors have shown interest in the Wyoming Reserve?

Josh: Yeah. So, right now, we’ve had people come in that have big exposure to, you know, they own a few companies, maybe some private companies, and their valuation of their company has been pretty big, and they’ve sold that. And so they have a large capital gain. And how do I keep more of my money with me and working for me? And we’ve also seen people that have a lot of 1031 exchanges. I’m a big fan of real estate as well, long-term. But for those that have many 1031s, the question is is, how do I get off the hamster wheel? And really, there’s no vehicle to get away from that tax until death, unfortunately. And so, for those that have maybe multiple 1031s, maybe this is a great off-ramp situation, that can come into play.

So, we’ve seen those types. We even have a family office right now. We just, through our broker-dealer world, are working with some family offices. And they’re looking at it for those exact same reasons as we’re mentioning. And we’re even getting much more sophisticated, where, let’s just say, family wealth is owning a, let’s say, a high-rise in Manhattan, and they own the whole thing. They may own that thing for generations, and they may not ever have a cap gain. So, let’s say someone comes in and puts an eight-figure investment into the fund. What we’re working on is a structure where a bank could provide some liquidity against that stock, in the event they need to buy something else for a time, but they wanna keep that ownership of that stock in the Reserve for what might be decades. Decades or more, along the way.

Jimmy: So, quite a few different types of investors who have expressed interest in the Wyoming Reserve, and quite a few who have actually invested in here.

Josh: Yep.

Jimmy: Precious metals enthusiasts, I’m sure. People who already understand gold and silver, and understand the gold and silver economy, and what you’ve built here.

Josh: Yeah.

Jimmy: People who are tax-savvy, looking for the tax efficiency. People who are looking for a hedge against inflation, as well. Right?

Josh: Yep.

Jimmy: Can you speak a little bit more to that? We’re in a disinflationary environment right now, where the rate of inflation has come down off its highs. We saw inflation as high as 9% just a year and a half, couple years ago.

Josh: Yeah.

Jimmy: And we have now the highest interest rates that we’ve seen in about 15-plus years.

Josh: Sure.

Jimmy: Are a lot of those investors just kind of worried about how much money we’ve printed over the last few years?

Josh: Yeah.

Jimmy: As you mentioned, there’s a finite supply of gold, right? But there’s an infinite supply of U.S. dollars, depending on who’s controlling the printing press.

Josh: That’s right. I mean, they’re telling us that inflation runs single digits. Is it really running 3.0 right now? I’ll let the viewers decide. You know, what are you seeing at the grocery store? Rent, mortgage rates, all these things are just continuing to go up much higher. So, people are looking for underlying investments that are gonna do well during those times. Obviously, real estate has done well, and now it’s hitting the headwinds of, does the interest rate, does the cap rate work? I believe, during the pandemic year, it was something like 40% of the money supply was inflated in 2020 alone. So, when you look at things, 40%, so it’s no wonder that things are getting so expensive. And so, now they’re telling us, you know, the inflation bucket of CPI, the index, how it’s calculated. I’m not so sure if that’s directly correlated to what people are actually experiencing in life.

Jimmy: All right. So, Josh, when an investor invests in the Wyoming Reserve, he gets exposure to physical gold, physical silver. But I have a lot of options as an investor, right? If I wanna own some exposure to gold and silver, I could, pretty recently now, I can go into Costco, right, and walk out with some gold. I can buy gold at my local Costco. I can order gold or silver online, have it delivered to my house. I can store it maybe stuffed under my mattress, or maybe in a safe or in a gun safe, somewhere in my home, or maybe hidden under some floorboards. You know, there’s some risks there, obviously, but at least I know where the gold is, I know how much I have, I can go get it anytime I want to. I could also invest, if I wanna own it a little bit more passively, and not have to worry about storing it, I could also invest in an ETF, something like GLD or SLV, or I think there may be some other gold and silver ETFs out there as well. How is this different? How is it differentiated, owning some stock in the Wyoming Reserve, versus those other options?

Josh: That’s a good question. So, if you were to buy, let’s say, one of these silver bars, you bought it from a coin shop, a bullion dealer, you bought it off a website, and if you sold that later, it’s actually subject to a 28% collectible tax. Not only is the physical metal subject to a collectible tax rate of 28%, but an ETF is too. So, GLD, SLV, has a higher tax rate than typical cap gains. However, when you invest in the Wyoming Reserve, you’re investing in a C corporation. You own the stock. And so, when you sell that… Let’s exclude the OZ and the QSBS tax advantages, but just owning it is better by 7%, which it, could be quite large, depending on the potential gains that you may have coming. So, that 7%, we’re taxed, here in Wyoming, there’s no corporate income tax. So, at a federal level, that potential tax rate you’d be looking at was 21%.

Now, if you’re adding the potential tax advantages, and we’ll definitely be talking about that too, there’s, it’s potentially tax-free appreciation, over these other ones. Here, you’re owning almost a hybrid between a ETF and a private equity company, in the fact that 90-plus percent of our fiscal treasury is actually in physical assets. So, we’re in 90% gold and silver, per the IRS rules for OZ Funds. The other benefit that you’re getting is, when gold and silver sit on the shelf, and this is sometimes a knock against gold, people look at it either as an offensive weapon, and they wanna make money off of gold and silver. They think it’s a great opportunity. But yet, it doesn’t create yield. It sits on the shelf, and you’re not making a lot of money off of it, are you? However, when you’re owning the Wyoming Reserve, you’re getting a little bit extra. It’s because we’re an operating business. So, as we store metal for third parties, we’re making a little bit of that annuity storage business. We’re also making a market. So, as more and more capital is raised, we’re entering into offtake agreements with mines, refineries, other distributors, banks, and we’re able to get things at a slightly better price. So, as we’re trading, and making a market in those metals for our industrial customers and other customers, we’re able to produce a little extra income, each and every year.

Jimmy: Yeah. So, I can buy some of this, or buy some gold, and keep it at my house, or maybe store it in the vault downstairs, right? But all this is is a store of value. It’s not gonna spin off any yield for me…

Josh: Correct.

Jimmy: …month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year.

Josh: Correct.

Jimmy: But because an investment in the Wyoming Reserve is an investment in an operating business, that has revenue sources, so it’s a little bit more than just holding this, and keeping it as a store of value.

Josh: And if you had bought something like this, let’s say, 20 years ago, you might be up, depending on when you exactly bought, five, six, seven times the value. So you probably have done well. Gold, kind of a similar situation. If you bought something around 9/11, you might be up 10X, in 20 years. So, oftentimes, people say, you know, gold doesn’t do well, but we just pretty recently surpassed the 50-year return of bonds. So, as people are starting to look at, I own stocks, I own bonds, yeah, gold in the portfolio is definitely something to consider. And here with the Wyoming Reserve, you know, our executive team is managing that metal, and doing the best it can. And also, similarly, when money comes in, it might not be the best day to buy it. So, just like a financial advisor, you give them a million dollars, and you say, “Hey, manage it,” and I pay you for it, they’re probably not deploying it all on day one. They’re gonna look to buy things at the right price. So, while we are always a net long business, we have the opportunity to kind of lean a little bit, based on where those prices are.

Jimmy: You can dollar-cost-average in the capital.

Josh: That’s right.

Jimmy: You can kind of lean one way or the other, toward gold or towards silver.

Josh: Yep.

Jimmy: You can wait on better time to buy.

Josh: Correct. And then, as our company performs better, thus will our stock price perform better. We have sound money assets on the balance sheets. We’re fully audited, and we’re very transparent, with an amazing management team.

Jimmy: So, Josh, you’ve mentioned a 5-year hold, and you’ve mentioned a 10 year hold. So, there’s some benefits after a 5-year hold. You’re not just an Opportunity Zone Fund. You’re this hybrid, tax-incentivized investment model, because you’re also taking advantage of section 1202, Qualified Small Business Stock…

Josh: Yes.

Jimmy: …or QSBS. And in order to achieve the full tax benefit under that section of the tax code, the investor only needs to hold for five years before avoiding capital gains tax. There are some restrictions, there’s some limitations, but can you speak a little bit more to that, and what’s exciting your investors the most about that option?

Josh: Sure, sure. Yeah. So, we have stacking benefits, for at least this first initial round of $50 million that we’re putting together. So, the way that works is, as you mentioned, we’re a Qualified Small Business Stock, in addition to the QOZ. What that means is, for those that come in as an OZ deferral, instead of having to wait the 10 years, you only have to wait 5. That means anything after five years appreciates tax-free for life, with the QSBS. For life. Up to $10 million per investor. That’s a lot of potential savings. So, we’re pretty excited about that. The other difference is, ordinary income can also be invested in, and still get the QSBS, which is huge, because we know from OZs, you need a cap gain, short-term, long-term. You gotta sell a business, stock, another real estate asset. Something needs to be done. But QSBS can just be capital out of ordinary income. Could be sitting in a savings account somewhere, and it can be invested in.

Jimmy: Because that QSBS, it’s limited to a $10 million gain per investor, but then it’s also limited to the fund size cannot exceed $50 million, if I understand correctly. Is that right?

Josh: Correct. Yeah, that’s right. So, as our, the capital of the fund, once we hit $50 million, that last investor in, that’s the last time, so…

Jimmy: That’s the last time you can do the QSBS.

Josh: QSBS. That’s correct. So, there is a little bit of urgency in for this next round. There is a little bit of preferred on this first round. And so, once we get that in, once we close the first $50 million, we’ll do an audit, and we’ll strike a new stock redemption value price for the stock. And then we’ll open up the next round. And that next round would be OZ-only at that point.

Jimmy: Right. So, the early adopters in this fund can potentially take advantage of the optionality of having it be an Opportunity Zone Fund, but also potentially being able to exit tax-free after just five years.

Josh: That’s correct. And we’ve also made it easy. We’ve had a lot of people, and we already have had a number of investors do subsequent investments. So, we actually lowered a minimum down to $50,000, for the investment. We’ve had a lot of people that say, you know what, I get cap gain scenarios every once in a while. I come into money. Is this something I can invest in maybe a few times? Yes, absolutely. So, that’s where we’ve made it a lot more simpler. This might be a little more sophisticated. Obviously, it’s for accredited investors only, but it definitely provides an easy way for people to put money in, and also redeem out later on.

Jimmy: And just the $50,000 minimum investment.

Josh: Yeah.

Jimmy: Josh, the Wyoming Reserve, we’ve talked about it as an investment in the gold economy, the silver economy, but why now? Why now to invest in the gold economy? Why now to hold precious metals? Why is now a good time, potentially, to be an investor in the Wyoming Reserve?

Josh: Sure. And I think that’s, number one, I think the big component of that is our tax advantages. And this first round has a much more significant tax advantage. So, I think getting in early… Also, the vault operation, as a business, we’re just getting started. And we’ve got a lot of nice clients that are already utilizing the vault operation, and it’s gonna continue to grow. And if you think about it, the more sophisticated banking world is the central banks. And it really hasn’t trickled down yet to the retail class. And even though we’re seeing it start to percolate a little bit, even in Costco, right, it’s in small quantities, at a individual basis. So, this is a time where I think you’re able to invest in something that is earlier stage, but it’s very stable. This is an investment class that has been around for a long time. I also think right now, we’re in, right at the moment, as the time we’re filming, we’re pre-election. It seems like everything is somewhat stable in the financial markets, but nothing feels good. And we know that there’s gonna be some turbulent times ahead. So, this is a fantastic time for people to perhaps rotate out of other assets, and get more exposure now, before things change.

Jimmy: Well, I read a headline about you guys recently, that termed you guys “the investment cowboys.” You guys are known as “the investment cowboys” in certain circles, I guess. But how do you view the term “investment cowboy?”

Josh: Yeah. I like the term “cowboy.” I think that’s good. And I think… We are in the Yellowstone state. This is a big ranching, rodeo-type place, but we’re not necessarily a rodeo investment, meaning we’re not gonna get bucked off. This is a many-thousands-year-old asset class that we’re in. There are banks that run their own vaults. What we’re doing really is not new. We just have packaged it together in a private model, and made it available for clientele. So, while I appreciate the cowboy spirit of independence and freedom and ingenuity and hard work, grit, and that’s what Wyoming is all about, and that’s what our company is about too, we kind of lean more in that zone of traditional cowboy. We’re here, ethics, code of conduct, and transparency.

Jimmy: Well, tell me a little bit about your staff here.

Josh: The founding group was friends of mine that I’ve known for almost 20 years. And I’ve traded with them for years. I’ve worked with one of them. And he really focused on the business development side, and opened up a lot of the government contract work, political affairs, which is why we work with so many central banks and governments around the world now. So, I assembled a team of other people. Another person on the team is Brian Bannister. He’s one of the sharper brains in all of baseball, and he’s a probability guy. And I talked to him a few years ago about putting together a model like this, and really focused on how are we leaning between gold and silver, and really putting together a nice strategy. And so, as we built that team, the chairman of the board is a banking veteran. He founded his own bank. Ron Baldwin came on board. And he took that bank public. It went on the NASDAQ. So, we’ve got a nice team of industry veterans, I would say, probability metrics of how do we invest in this asset class, to hopefully return a nice yield. And so, people say, “Josh, why did you build this vault, and why did you build the fund?” Well, obviously, I could build a vault on my own. I already have other vaults here. But really wanted to focus on something that could return what I believe is potentially really good returns over the next number of years. And as we perform well, the investors win first.

Jimmy: Well, Josh, if we have any investors out there who are watching this right now and they’re interested in learning more about the Wyoming Reserve, maybe they wanna meet with you or get on the phone with you or your team, what’s the best way for them to reach out?

Josh: Yeah. So, we’ve got a pretty nice website. It’s thewyomingreserve.com. And you can look at the top right corner. I believe it says “Stock Offering.” You can click there. There’s a bit of information there. You can also contact us, and someone from our team, and you might even get to talk with me as well, will be able to kind of work through some of the Q&A, whether that be you directly, or if you’ve got a grinder, an accountant, a financial advisor, a lawyer. Really, I would say our PPM reads really, really well. I mean, this fund was put together with some of the best law firms, the largest accounting firm in the United States. So we have a really good team, that could hopefully answer the questions for everyone.

Jimmy: Perfect. And you can head to thewyomingreserve.com to learn more. Josh, thanks for joining me today. It’s been a pleasure. Appreciate your time.

Josh: Awesome. Thank you.