Crazy about Scotch. Whiskey is the new safe-haven asset preferred by investors from all over the world: to certify it is Bloomberg, which mentions the operation just closed by the Platinum Whiskey Investment Fund, an investment fund in Hong Kong, which raised 12 million dollars in the last three years from about fifty wealthy investors, i.e. two million more than forecast initials.
The collection, which has so far completed the purchase of 14.000 bottles of fine whiskey at a cost of 9 million (the rest will be used by the end of the year), has been declared closed and it will be liquidated within four years with the sale to private clients, hotels and restaurants. Rickesh Kishnani, managing director of the Asian fund, told the US financial newspaper that the sale will yield, according to forecasts, more than 20 million dollars, or almost double the amount invested.
Meanwhile the growth of the Rare Whiskey Apex 1000, a niche financial index, dedicated precisely to the collectible whiskey bottle market, was significantly higher in the first six months of 2017 than that of other well-known indices such as that of gold, oil (which is down), of London's FTSE 100 itself or other similar markets such as that of fine wines (Liv-ex Fine Vine 100) or the shares of the global spirits giant, Diageo: more than +10% this year, almost 80% considering the last 30 months since January 2015.
The whiskey boom isn't just financial though. In the UK, collectable scotch has also broken all records in retail: according to CNBC in the first half of 2017 they were sold for £11,18 million, practically double compared to the same period last year. Even in Asia, where British liqueur is in vogue (especially in India), sales have risen by 55% in the last year.
The most popular is the "single malt" quality, the most niche and whose sales have grown by only 50% in the United Kingdom since the beginning of 2016. To give an idea of how much the whiskey market has exploded over time, just look at the figure for France, which is the largest consumer of it in the world (2,15 liters per year per inhabitant): 200 million bottles are sold every year, against 1,5 million in 1961.
