IFI governance

News

IMF still divided on gold sales windfall

21 November 2011

The executive board of the IMF continued to disagree, in an early September discussion, on what to do with the $2.76 billion windfall profits from its 2009-10 gold sales (see Update 75, 67). The sales aimed to fund an endowment for financing the Fund’s administrative costs such as salaries. The Board members remain split as to whether to put the extra money toward the endowment, the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust, or precautionary balances in light of heightened credit risk. The windfall, which resulted from high gold prices at a time of global uncertainty, will remain in the endowment account until another meeting on the subject in 2012.