1999–2002 sale of United Kingdom gold reserves

The sale of UK gold reserves was a policy pursued by HM Treasury over the period between 1999 and 2002, when gold prices were at their lowest in 20 years, following an extended bear market. The period itself has been dubbed by some commentators as the Brown Bottom or Brown's Bottom.

The period takes its name from Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who decided to sell approximately half of the UK's gold reserves in a series of auctions. This amounted to 395 tonnes of gold sold for $3.5 billion. The gold price increased at an average of 8% annually in the 25 years from 1999–2024.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.