Food & Dining ..A $14,000 barrel of whisky..

I know a few people that invested in this company,and by the looks of the outcome it would have been better just buying a still or home brew kits because all the money is now down the drain..

Investors, staff, Matthew Hayden dudded in boutique whisky collapse

 

We were actually helping a new distillery get started and we were going down the structure that Nant used.

This collapse changed our business model quite quickly. Not many people now want to buy whiskey for storage.

I think that a 9.25% guaranteed return should have been a warning sign.

 

what a mess filled with deceptive and fraudulent behaviour

Im sure the business model can be quite a succesful one

 

I agree the model is sound. A distillery run both a manufacturing business and a price speculation business. It makes sense to separate the two.

Sadly the fraud from Nant has just scared the hell out of investors.

 

I got into a pretty heated argument with some of my oldest friends over this whisky barrel stuff a few years back. A couple of them wanted to group buy multiple barrels, I think the plan was to take one as payment in whisky (believe that was an option) and sell the rest for profit.

Big flashing alarm bells went off in my head the moment I heard about it, no one borrows at 9.55% from unaccredited investors (aka retail punters) unless something very sketchy is going on. Especially in a biz like that, where worst case if you can't get traditional financing or a cashed up VC to fund your moon shot, you can normally find a high net worth individual to sink a few million into equity and cover some moderate losses as a hobby business.

Australia is littered with mediocre wineries owned by current and ex-titans of industry who don't blink an eye at losing a few hundred K a year because they know the $$ is in the land (so they should break even or more when they cash out in 5/10/15/20 years), its a "lifestyle" hobby business & there is definitely some **** factor/cred in being able to invite people out to your winery for the weekend. Check out the insane prices that Yarra Valley wineries now go for, even if their wines are practically swill.. Its more about having a winery you can pop out to visit on weekends then running a viable business. Nant has the old stone buildings and rolling green hills scenery, surely they could've found some peanut, given him a fancy title, a little cottage on side and a beat up 4wd to take his mates for some boozy paddock bashing around the estate. If you had $xx-xxx million net worth, you wouldn't consider being the Chairman of a whisky distillery in a picturesque part of Tasmania as a hobby business, lose a few hundred K (which is nothing to you at the point) a year for the 5-10 years you use it as a staffed holiday home, before selling it off to some Chinese money launderer/investor?

Catching up with some of them on Saturday, I plan on being an incredibly poor sport about it & repeatedly reminding them how I saved them from losing thousands of dollars on a scam.

 

My dad has a friend who distills whisky in Tassie - it's lovely. I have 3 bottles of their first release that I 'invested' in. I figured if worst came to worst I could drink it. So far the price has gone up by about 400%. Dad does have barrels of it, he worked for whisky instead of money and is one very happy man in his retirement.

 

Although I agree it seems it wasn't managed well, the model does have potential.
Also serves as a reminder to everyone - all investments carry a certain level of risk. Usually the higher yielding ones (9.55%) are the higher risk ones. Anyone going into this should have been aware of all potential outcomes. It's part and parcel of investing regardless of the asset class. Always do DD, mitigate risk, plan for the unexpected.