Wine investment firm disappears

Another UK-based wine investment company has disappeared leaving many of its customers empty handed.

Global: website shut down

Global Wine Investments, which was set up in April 2011, recently closed its website and cut its phone lines.

The company’s registered and trading address, 70 St Mary Axe in the City of London, was an accommodation address only – no business was done from there.

Blogs such as investdrinks.org have received several complaints from customers of Global, some of whom ordered wine worth many thousands of pounds but have received nothing.

One investor said: ‘I purchased four cases of Lafite Rothschild 2008, for £8,500 per case. I made the payment on 30th April 2012. They have twice offered me a refund, once spent a week telling me it was in the post, but nothing has materialized.’

Global’s two main directors were Michael Wilson and James Hamilton. The former was also a director of Omera Limited, which was dissolved in October 2011; some customers of Global were told that Omera was funding Global Wine Investments Ltd.

A spokesperson for major bonded warehouse London City Bond confirmed that Global Wine Investments Ltd did have an account with them: ‘We have frozen this account. However, it has minimal stock in it.’

It is too early to know what the total deficiency is.

Jim Budd runs investdrinks.org

Written by Jim Budd