UK fine-wine group Coterie Holdings is to provide lending and storage to fine-wine investment firm Cult Wines.
Under the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, Cult Wines will have access to Coterie Holdings’ 10-million-bottle storage facility, Coterie Vaults, which was completed in 2023. Coterie Vaults will become the exclusive storage partner for Cult Wines.
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Cult Wines will also have access to Coterie Holdings’ wine-lending business Jera, which it acquired in January. Coterie Holdings will also provide “a secured lending facility to Cult Wines”, it said in a statement.
Tom Gearing, CEO of Cult Wines, said: “This agreement will enable us to offer an unmatched level of service and innovation to our clients, further solidifying our position as the global leader in wine investment.
“Coterie Vaults is the leading wine storage facility in the UK, and this partnership secures warehousing capacity for our customers and future business expansion.”
Founded in 2007, Cult Wines manages approximately £250m ($319m) in wine assets for clients in 83 countries. It has 1.25 million bottles of wine in storage in the UK with London City Bond, which it said will be transferred to Coterie “over time”.
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By GlobalDataAround 40% of Cult Wines’ client base is based in the UK and Europe, with 35% in Asia, 10% in North America and 15% in the rest of the world.
Coterie Holdings is a holding company for four businesses across the wine supply chain: bonded storage facility Coterie Vaults, wine-lending business Jera, wine merchant Lay and Wheeler and importer-distributor Hallgarten and Novum Wines. It is owned by Cayman-registered, privately owned business Coterie Limited.
In September, it appointed industry veteran Michael Saunders as CEO. Coterie Holdings has since launched Jera, acquired distributor Hallgarten and Novum Wines and appointed UK retailer Marks and Spencer’s head of trading for drinks, Andrew Shaw, as wine director.
Earlier this year, Saunders told Just Drinks he was looking to expand internationally, particularly into Asia, “in the relatively near future”.
“We’re already looking at opening up vaults in other parts of the world because everybody in fine wine knows that the operations and service provision is imperfect elsewhere,” he said.
“We have the wherewithal and desire to sort that problem out. When we open a vault, on the back of that we could start other operations, be they private-client businesses, hospitality supply businesses, we’ll see.”
