by Giles Cadman
Vinance, a wine investment company, went into administration late last year. It had taken £5M from 1300 investors, and much of this appears to be lost.
A report for administrators Herron Fisher says that Vinance had £3m worth of wine on its book when it collapsed, so there is still an estimated shortfall of more than £2m.
The report claims that Vinance’s records were incomplete and that the company had used investor’s money for the day-to-day running of the business, and not to buy wine.
The report said: “The company sometimes received money from clients, but did not immediately buy the wine and the money was used for day-to-day expenses.”
The report is also critical of Vinance’s record keeping, adding: “The company’s were inadequate and the position of each customer’s investment was not properly recorded.”
Unfortunately this is an all too common problem in the wine investment industry. Companies who do not purchase wine with investors money are a huge burden on the industry, as bad headlines hurt all in the industry.
Surely they will have other creditors, I read that they had turnover of 5m but costs of 4.1m. If the records are so bad how can they know at this stage what the figures will be.
The sale of the database seems scandalous!