Henk J. Krasenberg
European Gold Centre

After a career in the European banking community as an analyst and portfolio manager in his younger years, which included a one-year specialization program with some prominent investment banking houses in Wall Street, Henk J. Krasenberg has been working as an independent portfolio manager in The Netherlands.

For many years, his areas of focus were the international stock markets, primarily those in Europe, New York and Japan. Later he widened his scope to include also other types of investment such as international real estate, shipping, film financing and commodities. At the same time, he developed personal preferences for investment vehicles in precious metals, diamonds and coloured stones.

In the early 1980’s, he became familiar with the precious metals mining industry in Canada and to a lesser extent, the United States. In particular, discovering and recognizing the potential of the junior mining and exploration industry led to his decision to fully concentrate his attention to this investment segment. In 1983, he organized the “European Information Centre for the Canadian Gold Mining Industry” which aimed to build a bridge between European financial institutions and Canadian mining and exploration companies. The instrument to realize this was an intensive publishing package, providing the European bankers, analysts and money managers with information on mining of precious metals in general and in particular, on the Canadian mining and exploration activities.

In the early 1990’s the international metal prices started to decline, followed by a strongly decreasing interest in the shares of mining and exploration companies, as market watchers and the investment industry believed that the metals sector was facing a longer-term downward cycle. As a result, Henk J. Krasenberg decided to go into a period of self-chosen retirement and wait for better market circumstances of a new upward cycle. At the time, he did not realize that he had to wait that long as it turned out to be. In the meantime, he followed one of his hobbies, other than precious metals, and opened up an art gallery in 1992; for years, he was successful as a gallery owner and an active participant in several leading art exhibitions.

It took until 2001/2002 for the metal markets to recover from the long period of low prices and insufficient financing possibilities, a recovery which led to the first possible signs of a new bull market. But initially, the recovery was more fuelled by the start of declining values for the US dollar than by successful metal markets. In 2003, however, the ‘real’ recovery of the metal sector became visible, i.e. also reflected in rising prices in other international currencies. Convinced that this was the sign he had been waiting for so long, Henk J. Krasenberg decided to shift gears again and came back to the metals and mining industry with a new vehicle, the European Gold Centre.

The European Gold Centre has the objective to inform primarily European institutions about the highly fascinating developments of the international markets for precious and base metals in general and in particular if the Canadian mining and exploration companies that have registered with The Centre. Through its information program, consisting of the monthly market bulletin GOLDVIEW, company reports, special reports and an extensive website, also banks, brokers, investment advisors, analysts, investment companies, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies and a large number of sophisticated private investors in other parts of the world are making use of the reports and enjoy the original and sometimes controversial ‘European view’ of Henk J. Krasenberg. He also regularly contributes articles to other publications and gives his view in radio-, television- and video interviews and as a speaker on international metal and mining events.

As most recent development can be mentioned that in August 2007, the European Gold Centre launched an additional newsletter named MINING IN AFRICA, which, as the name indicates, elaborates on the fast and fascinating progress of the mining and exploration industry in Africa, the richest natural resources continent on earth.
 

Website :   www.europeangoldcentre.com