Winchester Associates Ltd – a recently active charitable institution?

 'Winchester Associates was founded in 2006 and 

has an extensive amount of commodity trading between it's (sic) brokers'

Companies House: nature of business: market research 
and public opinion polling
Last accounts made up to 31.12.2013 (Dormant) 

'Who is?' details of Winchester Associates website: registered 13th March 2015 

Winchester Associates Ltd's contact details are:
St Clement's House, 27/28 Clement's Lane, EC4N 7AE 
Serviced offices and meeting rooms   

Winchester Associates Ltd have recently been active contacting a number of wine investors and offering very attractive prices for clients in Dubai and China. Its website trumpets that the company was founded in 2006 and has 'extensive experience'. This impression is highly suspect.

Although Winchester Associates was indeed set up on 21.8.2006, the company with a £2 share capital was dormant at least until end of 2013 – the last accounts filed are for a dormant company. Probably remained dormant until around late February/March 2015. Current director is 33-year-old Christopher James Brummitt (appointed 24.2.2015 and their website  wasn't registered until 13.3.2015. Serviced office address. Despite this history website gives impression that Winchester Associates Ltd has been active in the fine wine trade and commodity trading since 2006.   

AC was recently contacted by Winchester Associates Ltd who made a very generous offer for their portfolio of wines. This offer included £1434 for a case of 2005 Lynch Bages, which can be purchased elsewhere in the UK for £928, £10,894 for 1996 Lafite (case) and most generously £689 for a case of 2012 Château d'Yquem. Doubtless Winchester Associates priced the Yquem on its rarity value as the château did not release any wine under its name in 2012 as the conditions during the vintage were so atrocious for making sweet wine. Distributing such largesse makes me wonder whether Winchester Associates Ltd is a registered charity.

AC was told that Winchester Associates Ltd don't normally trade wines and instead deal in other commodities for corporate customers (oil and gas, diamonds, stones, gold etc). They claim to have a specific customer referred to as an "International Hotel Chain" with office is Dubai and Shanghai who they help source wines for from UK stockists. They stated that they had POs from them and could offer Live-X +25%.   

Winchester Associates Ltd's web pages on energy, metals and gold bear considerable similarity with the pages on

-->www.macquarie.com and --> http://commodityhq.com/commodity/precious-metals/gold while the fine wine section has similarities with an established wine merchant.

Here as an example is Energy:

'Winchester Associates  provides products and solutions to a broad customer base across the energy sector. Traded energy products include natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), natural gas liquids (NGLs), power, crude oil, coal and other refined products.

In addition, the division is active across all physical energy products: natural gas, power, LNG, oil, NGLs and coal. Energy Markets also provides storage and transportation services, and commodities based financing.'

 

I have to admire Christopher Brummitt's energy as the sole director of a £2 company on having established 'a broad customer base across the energy sector' in just five months since his appointment in February 2015. 

However, despite this I will steer clear of Winchester Associates Ltd and their amazingly generous wine offers – wine deals in Dubai and Shanghai can go sour....   

••

An aside 

I am indebted to anon for this research. On 2nd June 2005 The Hertfordshire and Essex Observer reported that a Chris Brummitt – 22 years old and living at the Spinney was jailed for three months for assaulting two police officers, while drunk. Read the story here. This may well be another Chris Brummitt and an entire coincidence. However, Christopher Brummitt (director of Winchester Associates Ltd) does come from Hertfordshire and as he was born on 13th June 1982, he would have been 22 when he was sentenced.  

Update: 27th August 2015  
investdrinks understands that Winchester Associates Ltd applied to EHD and London City Bond to open a trading account at these bonded warehouses. Both companies declined to do business with Winchester Associates Ltd.   

 

 

 

 

Christopher Brummitt holds 1 appointments at 1 active companies, has resigned from 0 companies and held 0 appointments at 0 dissolved companies. Christopher began their first appointment at the age of 32. Their longest current appointment spans 0 years and 5 months at WINCHESTER ASSOCIATES LIMITED.

Read more at: http://companycheck.co.uk/director/919529152

Bonds against the Scammers

Representatives from EHD and London City Bond (LCB) met with me on Tuesday 21^st April in Central London to discuss launching a new initiative – Bonds against the Scammers. In particular they will now be sharing information with each other and investdrinks about scam wine investment companies. 

Although in competition with each other, EHD and LCB are committed to making life difficult for wine investment scammers. This is certainly business that they do not want.

It is not wanted because wine should be enjoyable and they do not want to see their customers being ripped off. It is also not wanted because when things go wrong and the scam company goes bust or disappears, then it is usually the bonded warehouse that is left to pick up the pieces. Left to deal with understandably upset and irate investors, who may often have sunk a significant proportion of their life savings into wine they either doesn’t exist or for which they have been charged far too much.

Although the bonded warehouses are not in any way part of these scams, it is not surprising that some defrauded investors unfortunately assume that the bonded warehouses are somehow part of the scam.

HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs) and the money laundering regulations require bonded warehouses to carry out due diligence on customers wishing to open accounts. It is clear that these regulations put the emphasis on those wanting to open accounts to prove that they are legitimate.

LCB and EHD already do refuse to open accounts for companies they consider dubious as well as closing or freezing accounts of companies or individuals whose accounts arouse suspicion.

Often scammers refused an account at one bonded warehouse will apply to another bonded warehouse in the hope of slipping through. EHD and LCB agreeing to share information on companies and individuals refused an account or who arouse suspicion will make life more difficult for the scammers.

The bonds will also exchange information on their due diligence procedures and see how far these can be coordinated.  

We hope that other bonds especially other third party warehouses like Octavian will join in this initiative.