apw wines london

[Hawkmoon157]

Thank you for the information. When you sold your wine, did you sell them In bond or did you have to taken them out and pay the tax and duty before you could auction them?

Biddle and Webb took half the wines out for me to sell in one auction and then the remainder in the subsequent auction. Everything went through James Baker at Biddle and Webb as they advised not to pay APW the £2000 to remove wines from Bond. So glad I took their advice as APW just took people money and their service was awful, I dealt with Roberto at APW.

 

[Elliotxxx]

Thank you for the info but I fear its too late for me. I too dealt with Roberto very unhelpful!

 

[jotekfinance]

Is it really a big thing that people get into, such as people buying and selling lots of them? Or just people finding a bunch of bottles n their old family house cellars. I am pretty interested.

 

[Elliotxxx]

Wine is brought for investment and held in bond, tax not paid. The tax is only paid when the wine is taken out of bond but it can be sold in bond and the ownership transfered to the new owner. I have wine that I wan looking to sell.

 

[Hawkmoon157]

It seems that all the wines APW sold to its customers are now frozen and cannot be touched. The Bond where the wines are held are apparently owed money for storage that APW never passed on.

i.e. they charged for storage but never paid the storage company, nice!

I too have been in touch with James Baker at Biddle and Webb in Birmingham who seems to know what is going on. his email is [email protected]

I suggest if you want any info to drop him a line.

 

[Elliotxxx]

I have been in touch with the Insolvency Service and APW are not listed. I was referred to Business Debt line: 08001976026 but could not get through. Company's House has told me to write to APW's registered office: Specific House, 382, Kenton Road, Harrow. HA3 8DP to complain that the have not acted with due diligence. The letter should be recorded to prove that they have either received it or they are no longer at that address. Failure to comply, reply with comments, which I doubt they will , the matter can then be ref' back to Company's House who can take action against them. Please as many as possible contact "The Trading Standard Institute" : 03454040506 they can't do anything without proof that APW are con men. If enough of us contact them, as I have Ref' No: 12527566 they may stop another APW incident.

 

[Hawkmoon157]

Ok, will do

 

[jotekfinance]

I find that fascinating about buying them and holding them though. It is really just a long term investment though, right? Just be willing to let them age some to be more valuable? I'm just wondering how one makes money off of it.

 

[LNierop]

Biddle and Webb took half the wines out for me to sell in one auction and then the remainder in the subsequent auction. Everything went through James Baker at Biddle and Webb as they advised not to pay APW the £2000 to remove wines from Bond. So glad I took their advice as APW just took people money and their service was awful, I dealt with Roberto at APW.

Hawkmoon157 - if anyone advises you to remove your wines from bond before selling them they are doing you a major disservice as you will have to pay VAT and duty on your purchase price. They should sell them In Bond with the buyer paying the VAT and duty.

For example (ignoring duty to make it simple):

If you paid £20 a bottle, you’ll pay £4 VAT to release it.

If this bottle then sells for £6 at auction you’ll get £2 back before charges (£6 less VAT of £4).

If the wine sells in bond, even if it only sells for £4, you’ll get £4 back before charges.

I should add that I am in the wine auction business too (www.bidforwine.co.uk). We have sold wines for many APW clients over the past years (indeed we have a 600 lots sale on the 26th January). We will always sell in bond - clients simply need to send the stock to our bonded account and we do the rest.

Finally I should add that I actually paid a visit to APW's offices today as I was not getting any replies to my emails. They were 'home' and told me that the company should be formally in administration at the end of this week. Apparently the administrators will then make contact with affected clients.

Please feel free to email me if you have any queries - lionel [at] bidforwine.co.uk

 

[ClareS]

I have sold off my entire portfolio to Stuart at The Vinorium – [email protected] – The price I received for my portfolio from Stuart far exceeded anything an Auction House would have delivered (factoring in their commissions etc.) Stuart’s service was excellent and I received the funds the day the wines were transferred to his LCB account.

If I were you, I would get in touch ASAP – before the creditors move in!

Good luck to you all…

 

[ClareS]

I have been in touch with the Insolvency Service and APW are not listed. I was referred to Business Debt line: 08001976026 but could not get through. Company's House has told me to write to APW's registered office: Specific House, 382, Kenton Road, Harrow. HA3 8DP to complain that the have not acted with due diligence. The letter should be recorded to prove that they have either received it or they are no longer at that address. Failure to comply, reply with comments, which I doubt they will , the matter can then be ref' back to Company's House who can take action against them. Please as many as possible contact "The Trading Standard Institute" : 03454040506 they can't do anything without proof that APW are con men. If enough of us contact them, as I have Ref' No: 12527566 they may stop another APW incident.

Have you found a solution yet? I have just posted below, but I would recommend having at chat with Stuart at The Vinorium - [email protected] - he was so helpful and bought my entire portfolio... Which was fab! ... And such a relief. Money was in my account as soon as the wine was in his! Great service and advice too.

 

[LNierop]

Anyone wanting to benchmark prices could do worse than looking at http://www.dreweatts.com/cms/pages/lots/13835 which gives recent auction prices for a very wide range of similar stock (as of Monday).

 

[Elliotxxx]

Thank you for the information. I'll give him a try

 

[ClareS]

WARNING: DO NOT sell any wine to UK Agora – They are simply a bunch of ex-APW employees who are now targeting the same customers (they originally ripped off) and are now offering incredibly low values for your / our wines. Moreover, they are stripping out any wines which have some value attached. Please, please avoid at all costs...!!

 

[NVP]

that's not agora lifestyle is it ? ..............they are a shady "second income" set of companies as well

N

 

[Elliotxxx]

GOOD NEWS!!!!!!!!. A Winding up order has been granted by the court-"in the public interest" against APW.

I have been informed, today, that the court, yesterday, granted a "Winding up Order" in the public interest against APW. ReSolve , who had replace Quantuma, to act on behalf of APW have resigned, the directors' of APW are no longer in control of the liquidation of the company. This is very good news. It means that Quantum can start the liquidation process, once formally appointed; this will involve a through audit of clients' holdings against what is held by LCB to identify title and allow the transfer of wine into individual accounts. By retaining Quantuma, this will save 3 months of work already undertaken, that would have been lost if ReSolve had taken over. The other good news is that at the adjourned meeting of creditors held yesterday in High Wycombe, 20 attended. At that meeting I introduced Stuart McClosky of Z&B Vinorium base in Kent who I meet from these Tweets. Stuart outlined a rescue plan that he and his team are willing to undertake, firstly to assist Quantuma with the audit, using his own team with knowledge of the workings of LCB which can only assisting in speeding up the process and secondly to then assist creditor's on an individual level, to advice on what they want to do with their wine. We are assured there is no fee. Quantuma and Stuart have been in contact to arrange a meeting for them to plan the rescue, and I assume a meeting of creditors' will follow to update and vote on the proposal. Any further information please email Stuart at: [email protected]

 

[APW Liquidation Comm]

Posted by a member of the APW Liquidation Committee – Please be careful

This email was sent by Nicholas Gibbs of UK Agora at 15 July 2015 at 17:14 (followed by phoning the poor investors’)

Quantuma response “We have received similar updates from a number of other investors. Very concerning, and we will be taking appropriate action to ensure it is dealt with”

Dear Client,

We hope you are well.

We have an update regarding the APW/Quantuma situation.

A large institutional client of UK Agora's managed to remove his APW wines before they went into administration off of the back of our advice. However, he still has around 40 cases inside the APW London City Bond account which were not moved.

After putting significant pressure on Quantuma they have informed him that he can expect to receive his wines as they are not classed as APW's asset.

Like you, he has provided full proof of purchase which has helped Quantuma identify what wines belong to him. Your wines are stored within a sub account inside APW's main account which makes your wines easy to identify. (Should you be unsure of your account reference please check your APW paperwork. It normally consists of your first and last initial followed by a few numbers).

Fortunately for clients APW did actually purchase the majority of the wines they recommended. The wines we are aware they did not purchase are; Chateaux Lafite Rothschild, Yara Yerring and the Torbreck Laird 2008.

This comes as fanatic news as it means that your verticals and other collectible positions remain intact! This news has added some relief to those clients who were unsure of what the outcome would be.

I have also been given an idea of the time scale this process will take. But at this point I feel that it is probably not worth mentioning until I have an exact date.

We will continue to keep you up-to-date on this matter.

UK Agora

 

[AnaSella]

cellarlink insists on payment for markeing nad global wine portfolio access

HI Elliot,

I wonder if you can help me.

I bought a collection of wine from APW back in 2003 when I lived in Australia. I moved to the UK in 2007. I have had the wines in storage since then and paid the annual storage fee as well as the marketing fees and global wine portfolio fees. APW then morphed into Cellarlink and I continued to hold my wines with them.

I thought I should hold on to the wine even though the value had dropped by more than 50%, in the hope that the value would appreciate. However, sadly, that happy scenario has not materialized.

They alerted me on 7/1/2016 that I would be invoiced on 14/1/2016. on 10/1/2016 I told them that I wished to remove my wine from storage and I would pay storage fees until I could arrange for shipment of my wine to the UK, and that I would not require marketing services or global wine portfolio access.

They, however, insist that I pay these fees as I did not inform them 5 business days before 31/12/2015. Now keeping in mind that these marketing services and global wine portfolio access are not bespoke services designed for my portfolio and can be turned off at the click of a button, I told them I didn't see how informing them before 31/12/2015 or telling them a few days before they invoiced me would make any difference. However, they insist that I must pay these fees and they will not arrange shipment or release my wine until that payment is made. In vain have I explained that since the portfolio has dropped so much in value, the Craneford wines in my portfolio are meant to be drunk this year, and it is impossible to sell these wines at a profit, and therefore marketing services and global wine portfolio access are not required.

I would be grateful for any advice you can provide on what I should do to release my wines without paying these unreasonable annual fees on a portfolio that has lost more than 50% in value? I have raised a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and to the NSW Fair Trading office last week and am awaiting their response but they may take 30 days and my wine may be in breach of the contract which means I will lose control of my portfolio.

Regards,
Ana

 

[AnaSella]

HI Errorman,

I wonder if you can help me.

I bought a collection of wine from APW back in 2003 when I lived in Australia. I moved to the UK in 2007. I have had the wines in storage since then and paid the annual storage fee as well as the marketing fees and global wine portfolio fees. APW then morphed into Cellarlink and I continued to hold my wines with them.

I thought I should hold on to the wine even though the value had dropped by more than 50%, in the hope that the value would appreciate. However, sadly, that happy scenario has not materialized.

They alerted me on 7/1/2016 that I would be invoiced on 14/1/2016. on 10/1/2016 I told them that I wished to remove my wine from storage and I would pay storage fees until I could arrange for shipment of my wine to the UK, and that I would not require marketing services or global wine portfolio access.

They, however, insist that I pay these fees as I did not inform them 5 business days before 31/12/2015. Now keeping in mind that these marketing services and global wine portfolio access are not bespoke services designed for my portfolio and can be turned off at the click of a button, I told them I didn't see how informing them before 31/12/2015 or telling them a few days before they invoiced me would make any difference. However, they insist that I must pay these fees and they will not arrange shipment or release my wine until that payment is made. In vain have I explained that since the portfolio has dropped so much in value, the Craneford wines in my portfolio are meant to be drunk this year, and it is impossible to sell these wines at a profit, and therefore marketing services and global wine portfolio access are not required.

I would be grateful for any advice you can provide on what I should do to release my wines without paying these unreasonable annual fees on a portfolio that has lost more than 50% in value? I have raised a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and to the NSW Fair Trading office last week and am awaiting their response but they may take 30 days and my wine may be in breach of the contract which means I will lose control of my portfolio.

Regards,
Ana

 

[JoBob]

Cellar link - how do I get out?

I came across your thread on the ‘Trade2win’ forum about selling your wine investment in the UK. We are stuck with a similar scenario. We bought wine through APW in Sydney 10 years ago and it was apparently shipped to London.

Cellarlink then took over and the storage fees sky-rocketed. The wine is now worth considerably less, and with the sales commission etc., it is almost not worth selling.
I wonder if you could advise me if you sold your wine successfully, and if so have any tips for us.

Or indeed if it is actually possible to get someone to take the wine out of storage and keep it for us to have a party one day!
I appreciate any advice.
Jo