Cask Whisky Association – Dead Already?
Cask Whisky Association, launched in late 2023 with some noise on social media, and a bit of coverage in Whisky Magazine (who are rumoured to be happy to cover any old yarn as long as they are paid for it and the fact they went to market with THIS STORY as an “exclusive” pretty much supports the rumours about being paid to publish) seems to have died.
Cask Whisky Association Limited
Eyebrows were first raised when this organisation was registered on 18th August 2023 (click here for the link to Companies House), with Simon Michael Aron and Colin George Hampden-White as the two directors.
A few snarky comments on various social media platforms about this being a company (Limited on the end) as opposed to a charity or other such entity, was more about the ignorance on the rules, regulations and laws around the formation of companies and other entities in the UK.
Yes, this is a company, but it is a company limited by guarantee, not by shares. There are no shareholders because there is no share capital. It has directors and must file its accounts and annual returns each year but it is controlled by its members. Typically the members would be guarantors for any liability, but this is usually a nominal amount (for example £1 for each member).
Members typically pay an annual membership and the amount is set each year by the directors. There may (or may not) be transparency about this. All members might pay the same membership each year, or might not.
The real meat and bones of what this organisation might be up to would be within the Article of Association. You can download your own copy if you CLICK HERE.
There’s a lot of generic blurb and waffle there, but there are some points of interest. Page 10, Section 22 and 23:
In all fairness, neither Simon nor Colin are getting any DIRECT money from this entity. There’s no salary, no compensation when they leave office, although they can in theory claim normal expenses. So far so good – the entity looks like it has been setup as a not for profit, and the two directors haven’t created some fat salary gravy train like *cough* that other whisky association in Scotland.
But let’s look a little deeper at the directors. Starting with Simon.
Simon Michael Aron
Simon Michael Aron is currently involved with 6 other companies on Companies House records, 5 of which seem to be involved in either trading casks or or peddling whisky. Colin George Hampden-White also being involved in a cask trading company, Cask Trade Limited, a business that also has Simon Michael Aron as a director, with Simon Michael Aron being the UBO (ultimate beneficial owner). So Colin, essentially works for Simon at Cask Trade Limited.
Cask Trade Limited
Cask Trade Limited ain’t doing too bad it seems. They did £20.8 million in turnover, and £5.6 million in gross profit. Take note of that everyone, and in about 15 seconds with any normal calculator you can work out theres a 27.2% markup on casks they are peddling.
Think about that for a second. Assuming that this is an “industry” (dare we even call cask trading an industry?) norm, then for every £10,000 a punter spends on a. cask, £2700 of it gets trousered by the brokerage company. Even worse, if we assume that this “investment cask” nonsense is real, then a cask buyer couldn’t even break even on a resale in the first 5 years!
Simon Michael Aron
<<PLACEHOLDER>>
Colin Hampden-White
Colin has an interesting background. He started off as a photographer in 2005. Initially for the Financial Times, then the Greater London Authority, before sliding into the world of whisky in 2014 “as the Managing Editor of some whisky related content “procuring casks” for Stilnovisti.
He claims to be a NON-EXECUTIVE Director for Cask Trade Limited (which conflicts with what’s recorded at Companies House) and Chair of the Advisory Board at Cask Whisky Association. You can check all this out from his LinkedIn profile.
Where it gets interesting, and underlines the general flaws in the Scotch Whisky Industry, not least the old circle jerk that is Keepers of the Quaich, is how someone leaps from photographer, to cask peddler, to Keeper of the Quaich, all be shaking the right hands at the right time, and blowing the right amount of smoke up the right arses. Clearly no one within the KOTQ actually bothered to do any due diligence on Colin, or they would have seen he was up to his elbows in shonky wonky stuff……….but that is of course assuming that everyone else in the KOTQ are squeaky clean. Right?
Stilnovisti Limited, at least the company registered in the UK, seems to be nothing more than a shop window for something that goes on out in Poland. It has coasted between compulsory strike off and barely existing for as long as it has been registered (2009) with notices of compulsory strike off going back to 2010. You can check that out yourself on Companies House if you CLICK HERE.
As for the Polish operations of Stilnovisti – well, ask any of your Polish whisky loving friends for the stories that go around about that circus. They make Bear Blowman sound legitimate! Headed up by Krzysztof Maruszewski, who has been cranking out “Alternative Investments” since 2006, can you guess what circle jerk he’s a part of? Yes, that’s right. He’s another Keeper of the Quaich! We’ll no doubt do articles on the Keepers of the Quaich and Krzysztof at some point in the future!
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