Member Article

A look at the wine investment business

Vin-X specialise in helping investors to profit from fine wine. Chairman Peter Shakeshaft takes Bdaily behind the business.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

The most difficult challenge we have faced as a firm was launching in a financial crisis. I personally funded the company to get things off the ground as finance had totally dried up.

We were concerned that potential investors would sit on their hands during the downturn and be afraid to invest. However, economic uncertainty actually became one of our greatest assets as growing unrest amongst investors towards traditional options which they felt had failed them, encouraged them to look at alternative options such as fine wine.

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

We’ve been able to use the UK’s reputation as a safe place to do business to assist us in opening in several foreign markets. In addition, due to the systems and controls we’ve installed we are on target to achieve our ambitious target of quadrupling turnover within three years.

Another substantial achievement has been helping to launch the Wine Investment Association (WIA), a body created to bring regulation and a code of practice to a previously unregulated industry. We believe this was essential for the future of wine investment and are delighted to have played such a significant role in its creation.

What is your most important focus for the coming year, and what do you hope to achieve?

We have ambitious international growth targets and plan to expand into a number of markets including the CIS, India and Singapore. We aim to use the momentum we’ve already gained in Russia to reach the CIS countries. We feel India represents a great opportunity due to the current trade discussions with the EU and believe Singapore also represents a market with huge potential as demand spreads out of China and into the Far East.

What excites you most about your industry and business?

The people in the industry are great and are always open to new ideas. For example, when we suggested the creation of the WIA we found many supporters who realised just how necessary it was.

It’s also exciting to be able to analyse stocks more clearly, putting the chateaux under the microscope as a quantifiable investment opportunity.

What do you wish you’d known when starting out?

I wish I had pushed for regulation in the industry the day I formed Vin-X as I believe this is key to the industry’s future growth.

What will be the “next big thing“ in your industry, and how do you plan to handle it?

There is already recognition from traditional investors that wine is no longer an alternative investment and is instead widely regarded as a common asset class. This has been sparked by rising discontent towards traditional classes during the financial crisis, a fall in investor trust and a desire for more tangible asset holdings.

As a business we have steadily been gearing up to cater for this increasing demand through the systems and controls we have put in place and we are working hard to increase transparency and investor trust within the industry through the WIA.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .