Fine Wine Investing: Barrels of Returns or Rivers of Vinegar?
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Have you ever wondered how you might go about actually investing in fine wine?
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Speaker Bios
Neal Dessouky
Neal is an experienced wine industry professional with deep market understanding and expertise in nearly all aspects of the fine wine trade. Prior to starting San Francisco Wine Consulting in 2009, he held senior sales and advisory positions with several major wine merchants, including Premier Cru and Vinfolio. serving many of the world’s most passionate and serious collectors, as well as developing relationships within a global trade network including the U.K., France, Switzerland and Hong Kong.
San Francisco Wine Consulting, LLC was formed to offer tailored services to wine collectors and industry sources, particularly in the areas of acquisitions and liquidations. SFWC offers an alternative to auction houses to achieve price-control and more dynamic transactions via private placement through its network of buyers and sellers. Intrinsic to these activities is the advisory and execution of transactions pertaining to wine as investment, assisting some clients achieve greater than 20% annual return. SFWC also manages logistical aspects of wine collecting/investing including storage, transportation, insurance and appraisals/valuation.
Neal graduated from Colby College and holds a post-graduate degree with distinction in Business Administration from U.C. Berkeley. He is a Certified Wine Specialist from the Society of Wine Educators.
Andrew D. Ferriere
Andrew has developed, managed or owned close to a billion dollars in vineyard,wine, and or real estate assets over his 20 year career. Clients have included REIT’s,Investment Companies, Farm Management Companies, Packing Houses, Wineries,and over 10,000 acres belonging to the generational growers for the Mondavi andGallo families in the Lodi; and, Napa Valley. He provided, vineyard management, wine/vineyard industry consulting forindividuals as well as investment firms and has owned his own vineyards.
Currently he is the CEO of HOPE Investment LLC and the VP of CorporatePartnerships of the ONEHOPE wine brand, ONEHOPE is a cause centric commercecompany, and one of the fasted growing brands in the USA today. ONEHOPE has aproduction partnership with Robert Mondavi Jr.
HOPE Investments has brought together some of the greatest minds from the technology,investment and cause branding industries in a simple wine & vineyard investment model.Each series company investment opportunity has a strong long-term relationship with theONEHOPE Wine Company who facilitates both charitable donations, as well as globalwine sales in addition to paying a fixed 10% ROI for production capital.
By bringing Investors, Buyers of Wine, and Landowners together in newly formedSERIES companies the risks are greatly reduced for all parties.
Using a SERIES LLC structure, and, long-term buying commitment’s, HOPEInvestments solves problems for those who want to own vineyards, or, who simplywant to invest in the wine industry. Each SERIES can be Co-Managed by investors, istransparent, and, pays a fixed 10% ROI for production capital and in some cases sharesequity in vineyard properties.
Put simply we bring Buyers of Wine – Investors and Landowners
Andrew served as a Combat Medical Specialist with the 1stDivision; and, attended the CA Military Academy Officers Cadet Program.
He earned Degrees in Medical Entomology and performed his Post Graduate workin Viticulture at UC Davis followed by MBA work in International Business at theUniversity of San Francisco.
Dick Wollack is involved in two disparate areas of real estate-related businesses:
1) Wine/Vineyards: He founded Premier Pacific Vineyards (PPV) in 1998. PPV was the largest
developer/manager of high-end vineyards in the U.S. with 25 vineyard properties in California (Santa Barbara, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Napa counties) and Oregon. Nearly 100 of the finest wineries in the U.S. buy grapes from the vineyards PPV developed. The properties were owned in partnership with CalPERS and Commonfund through the end of 2011. Building upon this background PPV now acts an advisor to investors/lenders/wineries in the wine industry and is a partner in a new vineyard investment venture with the Beijing-based private equity firm, the Hina Group to raise $100 Million to buy producing vineyards in Northern California.He is also a founding partner in two wine brands: Expression (Pinot Noir from three regions: Oregon, Anderson Valley/Mendocino and Sonoma) and Tetra (Bordeaux blend from Napa).
2) Real Estate Securities: Dick has been in the real estate investment business since 1971 as a principal in dozens of real estate entities with a combined capitalization of more than $7 billion. He was the founder and Chairman of Global Real Analytics (GRA) that since 1980 specialized in forecasting real estate market prospects and managing money in REITs. GRA was sold to Charles Schwab Investment Management in 2007. He is now creating an innovative REIT investment strategy to offer to institutional investors that achieves investment goals previously unobtainable via the various real estate investment channels open to them.
The author of two books on real estate and investing, he has also been an adjunct professor at
both Stanford Graduate School of Business and the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Business
and was a member of the California Senate Commission on Corporate Governance, Shareholder
Rights and Securities Transactions. He holds an MBA with distinction from the Stanford
Graduate School of Business (1969) and a BA from the University of Illinois (1967), where he
was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa.
In 2010 Dick was named to the Vintners Hall of Fame Board of Stewards, affiliated with the
Culinary Institute of America in the Napa Valley. He and his wife Sue have a home in St.
Helena, CA and an apartment at the St. Regis Residences in San Francisco. (And he drinks a lot
of wine.)
Keith D. Wesselschmidt
Director of Finance & New Business Development, V2 Wine Group
As a Director at V2, Mr. Wesselschmidt is engaged in sourcing and evaluating partnership opportunities, overseeing the Finance, Accounting and HR functions. V2 is a wine sales and marketing company. Its winery partnerships include sales only, sales & marketing and ownership positions. Its noted brands are Dry Creek Vineyard, Toad Hollow Vineyard and Steelhead Wine.
Prior to joining V2, Mr. Wesselschmidt had a 25-year tenure at Anheuser-Busch and Bacchus Capital Management, during which he held executive positions in finance, operations, marketing and corporate planning. His last position at Anheuser-Busch was Director of Business Development, during which he led Anheuser-Busch into the wine industry through an investment in Bacchus Capital Management. Prior to his position in business development, Mr. Wesselschmidt oversaw and directed the capital planning for the company’s U.S. and international beer operations. He was part of the team that made the first investments for Anheuser–Busch in China and the company’s joint venture with Scottish Courage in the UK. As a Brand Manager, Mr. Wesselschmidt helped launch Anheuser–Busch into the energy drink category and marketed several of the company’s above premium brands.
Mr. Wesselschmidt began his career at Arthur Andersen & Co. in the management information consulting group. He holds a Masters of Business Administration from Kansas University and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Missouri – Rolla.
Keith and his wife, Katie, have lived in Danville, CA since 2008. They raised two boys in St. Louis and newly achieved the title of proud grandparents.