Tavex Bullion

Tavex Gold, the UK Arm of a Pan-European Group

Tavex Gold Limited is the British business of the Tavex Group, a pan-European precious metals and currency exchange company founded in Tallinn, Estonia, in 1991 by Alar Tamming. The group started out as a video-rental firm called Tavid, made its first foreign currency exchange transaction in October 1992, and began selling investment gold in 2004. Bullion has since become a core line across its European operations, with annual gold sales reaching 11,171 kilograms in 2022.

The UK company was incorporated in England and Wales in January 2018 under Companies House number 11167367 and is VAT registered (GB414694879). It began trading in 2021, when the group entered the British and Hungarian markets in the same expansion push. The business runs from 110 Hatton Garden in London's historic jewellery quarter, where a walk-in store sits alongside the online shop; the Hatton Garden address became the registered office on 31 August 2021, when the company moved out of dormancy. Customers can buy investment gold and silver bullion over the counter or online, and the branch also handles currency exchange and buys back gold and jewellery.

The bullion range centres on gold coins and gold bars from established mints and refineries. Tavex UK names The Royal Mint, PAMP Suisse, Valcambi, the Perth Mint and Münze Österreich among its official mint and refinery partners, and describes Argor-Heraeus of Switzerland as an official partner. Tavex also sells its own branded gold bars in 0.25 gram and 1 gram sizes, made to its specification by partner refineries and stocked across the group's European sites.

From a Tallinn Video Shop to London's Jewellery Quarter

Tavex traces its origins to Tallinn, Estonia, where founder Alar Tamming set up a joint-stock company called Tavid in 1991. The name was short for Tallinn Video Center, and the original trade was video rental. That phase did not last long: the firm completed its first foreign currency exchange transaction in October 1992 and pivoted to forex, which carried the business through its first decade.

Expansion followed demand. The first foreign subsidiary, Tavex OY, opened in Finland in 1996, built around express money remittances for Estonian workers there. Latvia followed in 2002 and Sweden in 2005. Investment gold arrived in 2004, initially as a way for the owners to preserve their own assets; at the time a kilogram of investment gold cost around 11,000 euros. The 2008 financial crisis turned that sideline into a major business, with the group delivering 2,159 kilograms of gold that year, a record at the time.

The following years brought growth on both fronts. Bulgaria joined the network in 2009, Denmark in 2010, and Poland and Norway in 2014. In 2011 the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority granted Tavid AS a payment institution licence, and in 2014 the group founded TavexWise AS to run payment and money transfer services in Estonia, Sweden, Denmark and Bulgaria. Romania followed in 2019 with two entities, one for gold and one for currency exchange.

The British chapter began quietly. Tavex Gold Limited was incorporated in England and Wales on 24 January 2018 but remained dormant for three years. It was activated in 2021 as part of a wider push that also took the group into Hungary, opening a walk-in store at 110 Hatton Garden in London's jewellery and precious metals district in mid-2021 and adopting that address as its registered office. The UK operation combined over-the-counter retail with online sales of investment gold and silver coins and bars from the start, alongside currency exchange. The wider group kept growing too: Serbia joined in 2022, the same year Tavex's annual gold sales reached 11,171 kilograms, around five times the volume it delivered during the 2008 crisis.