Welcome To Savea

Savea is building the financial infrastructure for the next generation of real-world asset investors.

Physical asset ownership in the passion asset sector has fallen behind that of the wider alternative asset ecosystem, but the fundamentals of steady return, low volatility and negligible correlation to traditional equity markets remain.

Just as ETF’s transformed the equity investment markets, Savea is on a mission to create better products that deliver access for more discerning investors, whilst raising the bar on regulation and transparency that has plagued the passion asset industry for decades.

Fine Wine as an investment

The wine market is a $100bn asset class that has outperformed the majority of traditional assets over a 20 year historical period with average rolling returns of 6-10% per annum, lower volatility (on average less than 5% standard deviation of returns) and almost no correlation to traditional equities (<0.1% correlation co-efficient).

The Liv-ex 1000 Index

The Liv-ex 1000 is the top volume traded ‘investment grade’ wines (see components here) that meet the following criteria;

• Proven market liquidity – consistent demand and transparent pricing

• Come from established, reputable producers with a track record of quality

• Exhibit price stability and historical performance

• Are professionally stored and in-bond (kept in bonded warehouses that are insured and temperature controlled and traded globally without VAT or duty applied)

• Meet quality and scarcity benchmarks – production is limited, vintages are rated highly by critics with ageing potential and scarcity that supports long-term appreciation.

The Liv-Ex 1000 has existed since 2003 with a long historical track record of data

Timing

The wine market has been through a 3 year correction cycle which is stabilizing (25-30% down since 2022) – which, with recovery, could lead to a steady appreciation in the years to come.

Natural Scarcity

Wine itself is limited by the volume produced, the more wine that is consumed of a specific vintage, the less available, but demand does not tend to fall in line with supply, pointing to a natural appreciation in prices.

The Problem

Having experienced these issues first hand, we have identified the following sector-specific problems with the current wine investment model:

1. Physical asset ownership is expensive to enter

   Investment-grade cases of wine typically trade anywhere from £1,000 ranging up to £50,000+. A sufficiently diversified portfolio of these wines therefore requires a significant investment, creating high barriers to entry for new investors looking for exposure to the asset class.

2. On-going maintenance fees are high

   Although some merchants do not charge management fees for client portfolios, there are a range of fees (or commissions) to cover by owning a portfolio on entry and exit. On-going storage charges start from around £15 per 9L case per annum and broking fees can be up to 10% when selling.

3. Liquidity

   Traditionally it could take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months to procure a portfolio in full, and when looking to exit, the buyer must rely solely on existing customers of the merchant in order to exit positions. Alternatively, some structured wine funds offer a more sophisticated fractional ownership model, but these are still in its infancy and usually closed end 5 years + structures with zero interim liquidity.

4. Underperforming selections

   Account managers usually make commission on sales creating a natural advice bias to the top 1% of customers. For those who fall outside of this bracket, they may not get offered the best wines available (and may never know it!).