"Wine Exchange": investing in new categories?

The establishment of an exchange helps reduce the cost of circulation and facilitates consumers to select their favorite products. However, if the alcoholic products originally used for drinking are labelled as investments, their investment value is overemphasized, and the risk of product virtualization cannot be underestimated. . As a new thing, can the “wine exchange” provide investors with new investment channels? How big is the risk of investing? There is a demand for transactions, and there are markets for business opportunities. Since last year, various types of alcoholic “exchanges” and “trading centers” have mushroomed and liquor, wine, and rice wine markets have been covered. The reason behind this is that the existence of a huge wine consumer market in China is undoubtedly the main reason why alcohol importers and exporters, brand manufacturers, and supply chain companies have come.

According to statistics, in 2011, China produced about 10.25 million liters of white spirit, 48.89 million hectolitres of beer, and consumed more than 1.9 billion bottles of wine. It is the world’s largest liquor production and consumption market, the world’s largest beer production and sales country, and the fifth largest. Wine consuming countries. According to the "Twelfth Five-year Development Plan for the Food Industry," by 2015, China's wine industry will achieve sales of 830 billion yuan, an average annual growth rate of more than 10%.

Over 10 domestic wine exchanges not long ago, the China (Wenzhou) International Wine Trading Distribution Center announced that it will officially open in 2013. In May this year, the second liquor trading company in China was approved to establish in Guizhou. According to preliminary statistics from the reporter, since last year, more than 10 liquor exchanges in Hong Kong, Tianjin, and Sichuan have gone online. The start-ups of these wine exchanges include production companies, supply chains and securities companies, with registered capital ranging from tens of thousands of yuan to hundreds of millions of yuan.

From the perspective of regional distribution, the wine trading venues that have been opened in China are mainly distributed in large wine producing provinces or traditional commercial distribution centers. For example, there is Shaoxing Rice Wine Trading Center in Shaoxing, which is the hometown of rice wine; Guizhou, the home of Maotai, has just been approved to establish the second domestic liquor exchange; Shanghai Wine Trading Center and Shanghai International Wine Exchange Center in Shanghai; Jiajiu Exchange: Bohai International Wine Exchange, Mingzhuang Wine Exchange and Binhai International Wine Exchange, all three were established in 2011. In addition, Tieling City, Liaoning Province will also establish the first wine trading center in Northeast China.

Judging from the functional orientation, the functional positioning of the wine exchanges that are currently in operation is much the same. The Shanghai Wine Exchange Center declared that it was “the first wine electronic trading platform in China and also the first wine trading center in Asia”, and the Shanghai International Wine Trading Center publicly stated that they were Shanghai Municipal Government’s promotion of the “Shanghai International Trade Center”. Part. Another example, the main attack on the liquor trade platform of the Sichuan United Alcohol Exchange, the company's development goal is to build China's largest wine trading platform and pricing center, in addition, just officially unveiled the Beijing International Wine Exchange also expressed its commitment to build "The world's largest and most influential wine trading center market" has become "the resource allocation center, trading center and price reflection center for international high-end wines".

The investment function shows that in addition to being a traditional drink, it does have a certain investment value. Taking wine as an example, in recent years, the annual average price of wine has tripled, significantly surpassing the performance of markets such as stocks and artworks during the same period, and its investment function has gradually emerged.

According to a report released recently by the London International Wine Exchange, the world’s largest wine futures exchange, the investment income of the period is far higher than gold (1587.50, -1.60, -0.10%), crude oil (85.25, -0.74, -0.86%) and Equity investment has become one of the highest value-added investment products. According to the analysis of the investment return curve of the exchange over the past 30 years, the value of diamonds is 1.49 times higher, gold value is 1.68 times higher, and wine appreciation is as high as 37.69 times. Of course, not all wines have investment value. Only the top wines produced by the top wineries have the potential for high value-added.

In this sense, it is not unreasonable to say that the "warm rise" established by the various wine exchanges. However, the reporter’s investigation found that, from the point of view of trading methods, many domestic wine exchanges currently do not rely on liquor as their main business. According to the wine exchange, its products are not only issued to specific objects but also issued to the general public, adopting ownership transfer and debt issuance methods; some liquor exchanges do not have personal trading services, such as Bohai International Wine Exchange, which only deals with corporate transactions. The legal person joins the wine exchange as a member. If the individual famous wine and other wines are to be traded, they can be authenticated by the designated appraisers of the exchange, and then auctioned on the exchange; and other liquor exchanges, such as those coming to Tieling The establishment of the first wine trading center in Northeast China will be a large-scale trading market integrating alcohol sales and wholesale.

Lack of industry standard wine exchanges as new things, the industry evaluation is not the same. Many people questioned the trading patterns of some wine exchanges. “At present, the patterns of some wine exchanges are similar to those of the art work previously introduced by the Tianjin Stock Exchange. Will the Wine Exchange not appear again before the “Chaos” of the exchange?” An investor encounters blending products and lacks an authoritative authentication mechanism to protect their rights and interests."

A liquor distributor said in an interview with reporters that the establishment of a wine trading platform is conducive to balancing supply and demand, reducing the number of intermediate channels, and making domestic wine prices more transparent. He believes that compared with foreign countries, the financialization of alcohol in China has just begun and there are not many brands participating. With the financialization of alcoholic products, there will be more and more brands participating in the future, and the scale will increase. This is a trend.

Analysts at the Industrial Development Research Institute said that as a middleman, the wine exchange should have played a role in price communication and promote resource allocation to stabilize prices. However, the registered capital sources, product virtualization and third-party supervision of some trading venues are still questioned by the market. It also brings regulatory difficulties. He suggested that the regulatory authorities should establish industry access thresholds and strictly monitor their investment funds, establish a third-party depository system, guard against the misappropriation of investor funds and protect the interests of investors.

However, many people also said that from the current situation, the wine exchange will also face a period of growth. At the end of 2011, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Guiding Opinions of the Ministry of Commerce on Strengthening the Management of Liquor Circulation During the Twelfth Five-Year Plan Period," and encouraged the establishment of a wine circulation platform. The "Guidance Opinion" proposes to carry out circulation platform projects, support the gathering of alcoholic industries and areas with developed supply chains, and build functions such as wine display promotion, centralized transactions, warehousing and logistics, trade services, information dissemination, and testing and evaluation. Comprehensive platform: Encourage alcohol-based sales areas and advantageous major producing areas to establish regional wine logistics parks with different characteristics and strong radiation capabilities; support the establishment of cross-regional, national, and even international alcohol spot transactions in qualified regions center.

It seems that whether the “wine exchange” can rapidly grow into a new category of more people’s investment seems to have yet to be tested.