Eric Sprott (born 1944/45) is a Canadian

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000, one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultr ...

businessman.

Early life

Sprott has a bachelor's degree from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

Career

Sprott started his career as a research analyst with

Merrill Lynch Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, doing business as Merrill, and previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investm ...

, before becoming a fund manager. In 2001, he sold his first company, Sprott Securities, to the company's staff, and donated $10 million to Carleton University, who renamed their business school, the

Sprott School of Business The Sprott School of Business is a doctoral-granting business school at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada – the nation’s capital. It is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the Ne ...

. Sprott advised investors to buy gold before the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

. After the

, gold rallied to a new all-time high of over $2000/oz. The Sprott Molybdenum Participation Corporation was a dedicated

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...

hedge fund A hedge fund is a Pooling (resource management), pooled investment fund that holds Market liquidity, liquid assets and that makes use of complex trader (finance), trading and risk management techniques to aim to improve investment performance and ...

created in April 2007 to invest in

molybdenum Molybdenum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mo (from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'') and atomic number 42. The name derived from Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lead ores. Molybdenum minerals hav ...

assets. The primary investment objective of the corporation was to achieve

capital appreciation Capital appreciation is an increase in the price or value of assets. It may refer to appreciation of company stocks or bonds held by an investor, an increase in land valuation, or other upward revaluation of fixed assets. Capital appreciation ...

by investing in securities of private and public companies that explore for, mine, and process molybdenum. The fund was listed on

Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; ) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the List of stock exchanges, 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in th ...

under the ticker MLY. He was the chairman of Sprott Inc, a Toronto-based asset management firm, from 2010 to May 2017. Sprott is a "long-time gold bull", and claims to hold 90% of his assets (except for Sprott Inc shares) in gold and silver.

Personal life

Sprott is married to Vizma Sprott and has two children, Juliana Haver and Larisa Sprott.

References

1940s births Living people Canadian billionaires Carleton University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) {{Canada-business-bio-stub