Monthly newsletter for January 2021

Dear All,

Welcome to 2021!  We’re very happy to kick this year off with some great news that Brexit is finally in the rear view mirror, and that a number of big auctions have closed over the festive season. What would have normally resulted in a quiet seasonal January, turned into a pretty exciting start to the year.

The passing of Brexit and the very active auction activity during the festive season has resulted in a very healthy return for the month.  Good news is that we still have 3 months of runway to close our second year of operations and we have already overachieved our annual benchmark return of +12% for our investors. Notable price movements in the portfolio this month included the Springbank Millennium Set at £34,000 returned 59.25%, a large move on a high value set that has not been on auction for some time. We are sure to see a few more sets on auction after this record breaker. The team has also been busy sourcing new inventory, and received a Macallan Fine and Rare 1978 at £20,000  and the Macallan Folio 6 in the vault over the last month. 

There has been tons of news at the start of the year. Bloomberg recently picked whisky as the hot alternative investment to watch for 2021 with specific mention of the surge in Asian demand driving this, as it did with rare wine a decade ago.  Good news for whisky demand and prices is that the UK and US trade ministries are in active discussions on removing the whisky tariffs implemented by the Trump administration. Whisky Auctioneer also recently announced that they have had a record year in 2020, showing the incredible appetite for rare and collectible whiskies right now. Lastly, our very own co-founder was on national evening news in South Africa taking us through the do’s and don’t of whisky investment, from how to pick the right bottles to the fundamentals of storage.

The team has also been proactively building responses to frequently asked questions from our Collective and friends in the industry, with a recent article published regarding our valuation methodology. Conducted every month, our rigorous valuation process is a key component of our investment approach at the Collective.  Please do feel free to reach out to us if there are any deep-dive topics you would like us to cover in the future.

That’s all from us for the first newsletter of 2021. We’re wishing everyone an amazing start to the year!

Marek, Marc, Neil, Gary