Fine Wine Investment thru Cecilia Oldne of Amphora, London

Do you remember Cecilia Oldne who used to work for 10 years with Sula Vineyards and suddenly disappeared? After a year’s absence from the preferred country of her choice, during which she perhaps did the ‘Eat, Pray and Love’ thing and also visited her family in Sweden and Thailand, is back in Mumbai representing the Fine Wine Firm, Amphora Portfolio Management headed by David Jackson who was in India, meeting old clients and the potentials and introducing her to them.

The company formed by Jackson and 3 other colleagues as partners in 2009, works closely with Liv-ex and looks at helping appreciation of clients’ portfolio. He has managed to rope in around 20 clients investing around a million pounds since their entry into the market in 2014. This includes several High Net Worth individuals of Mumbai..

‘ If you don't expect windfalls, the profits can be respectable,’ says David who is quite happy about the performance in India. The business model is slightly different than the other investors indulging in wine investments. Amphora does not sell wine funds but helps investors buy fine wines and if needed, help them liquidate. For their service, they normally charge an upfront fee but for India that does not work and the model has been custom tailored. Apart from a nominal fee of around 4% that also covers the cost of warehousing, there is a commission of 20% is charged only on the profit on sale for the advice and handling of portfolio in general.

What is the minimum one must invest, I ask. ‘There is no minimum amount required to invest but since these wines by definition are so gloriously expensive, we expect the client to start with a minimum of £20,000. Again there is no set time frame but we suggest they should keep a horizon of 5 years. We do not charge for selling and buying before the 5 years period if the funds are re-invested in other wines. To help liquidate stocks at any given time, there is a separate department with full data base, who connect with them and liquidate the liquid.’

One positive aspect of investing with Amphora is that the purchase is made by them on behalf of the clients and stored in the London City Bond owned by Liv-ex in the name of the clients. The effort is to invest in wines-by –the cases only and purchased directly from the Négociants and always stored in the city bond, keeping the authenticity and provenance intact. Also, the client is advised to diversify the portfolio as much as possible to lower the risk.

‘We have been working with wealth management companies to promote fine wine as a portfolio investment. We have been very fortunate in that these companies have been helpful as have been the YPOs who are usually well-connected. Cecilia’s role is to interface with potential and existing clients to help them with any issues and also expand the business through tasting of fine wines frequently with the potential investors. With our background in the stock market (David has been a stock broker for 3 years before he joined some friends and formed the company and a couple of partners have been merchant bankers/investment brokers) we are well aware of the intricacies of stock market,’ says David whereas wine merchants in similar business tend to invest only in top growths which may appreciate exponentially - or not.

Most such investment managers would recommend buying the top growths and hope for the investment to grow with all the risks duly incorporated but Amphora studies the wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Italy of different earlier vintages and recommends accordingly.

How about the possibility of a price scam, like showing the client lower price of sale and taking the cream off top, I ask him bluntly. ‘We work with Liv-ex who has an algorithm that tells the price. We have a deal with them and each of our customers is wired to them and can see the prices of their portfolio at all times. So he knows the price at the time of buying and selling pretty well,’ he adds.

What If I wanted to sell off my portfolio at any time for any reason before 5 years?  ‘There is no lock in period but a practical time period during which most corrections come in.’ The investor gets the money within 6 weeks in such cases.

It is not unexpected that the growth in India has been slower than expected - 20 clients against 100 anticipated in 2014! But with Cecilia on board, David can certainly expect servicing a huge number through her contacts and expect a much faster growth. After all, Cecilia has the confidence in the product and also invested a small amount in 2016 and has made some money.

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