Pension funds must buy physical gold to protect themselves from hyperinflation and economic collapse.

The stark warning has come from Egon von Greyerz, a managing partner at Matterhorn Asset Management, who says that there is very little shelter available from another impending global financial crisis - one which will represent the culmination of the exponential credit creation of the past forty years.

Von Greyerz is based in Zurich with the Swiss asset management company which specializes in wealth preservation through precious metal investment, and was at one time vice chairman of Dixons and a trustee of the firm's pension scheme. He told Pensions Age that "the world is in a mess".

"The banking system is bust, the sovereign states are bust. There is only one solution, which is to print unlimited amounts of money which will make the money worthless.

"If I had a pension fund I wouldn't trust a penny of it to the stock market and cash in the bank. Pension funds have three major assets: bonds, equities and property. In my view all three of those are going to collapse," he said.

Investment in physical gold, not just "ETF paper gold", he claimed, is the one safe haven for investors.

Demand, he added, was going up all the time as people are getting worried about the precarious state of the financial markets. UK pension funds, he said, are among some of the investors he is dealing with.

Dismissing descriptions of his analysis as extreme, he said gold still had a way to go from its current price of $1,230 per ounce.

"People say we're talking about Armageddon - but we're about preserving wealth. We're concerned about protecting investors' money. I don't know a better way to do it. Sadly, this is our view.

"We're not going to recommend gold for ever, but it's the right asset in the next few years."

A report outlining Von Greyerz's views in more detail, can be found here.

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