Liv-ex Director James Miles examines the impact that the internet has had on the fine wine market and suggests a future direction.

1. Market Transparency and Efficiency:
Fine Wine’s Online Revolution

2. LIV-EX
• Set up in 1999, the vision for Liv-ex was to create a global exchange
for fine wine merchants.
400 members - 33 countries

3. RIPE FOR CHANGE
• Traditionally opaque
• Lack of trading liquidity
• Highly fragmented, both in terms of
players and products

4. MARKET TRANSPARENCY
The internet’s most important innovation has
been transparency of:
• Quality
• Availability
• Pricing

5. MARKET TRANSPARENCY
Ten years ago, price discovery was time
consuming and imperfect - even for insiders.
Outsiders had no chance.

6. MARKET TRANSPARENCY
Today, price discovery is instant and available to all:

7. THE RESULT
• Dramatically lower barriers to entry
• Increased confidence for both the trade
and collectors
• Margin compression, but market
expansion

8. MARKET EXPANSION
Global fine wine turnover has quadrupled since
2004, reaching USD4bn in 2010.
4.5
4
3.5
Global market turnover (Billion USD)
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

9. HIGHER PRICES
Prices for the top wines have increase 220% in ten years.
Source: Liv-ex.com
Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 Index
380
360
340
320
300
280
Index Value
260
240
220
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
Jul-07
Jul-04
Jul-05
Jul-02
Jul-03
Jan-04
Jul-08
Jul-11
Jul-01
Jan-08
Jan-10
Jul-10
Jan-03
Jul-06
Jul-09
Jan-11
Jan-06
Jan-07
Jan-09
Jan-05
Jan-02

10. WHAT NEXT?
In our view, the next ten years will be all
about using the internet to increase
efficiency, reduce costs and limit stock
movement.
The focus will move from improving the
trading experience, to improving post-trade
settlement.

11. A POST-TRADE REVOLUTION
Two key issues:
• Accounting and logistics functions in fine wine
remain little changed in 20 years.
• Fine wine continues to use commercial wine’s
logistics infrastructure, despite having very
different requirements. The internet gives the
fine wine trade the opportunity to develop its
own platform.

12. IMPROVING SYSTEMS
• Increased data interchange between
customers and suppliers using industry-wide
messaging standards.
• Transactions, invoices, warehouse instructions
and accounts entries will be electronic–
allowing for straight-through processing.
• L-WIN – The Universal Wine Code – is a key part
of this process. A common language for the
trade: one wine, one code.

13. A NEW SUPPLY CHAIN
From a business perspective -
commercial wine and fine wine
have nothing in common....
So why do they share the same
supply chain?

14. COMMERCIAL WINE
Producer
Distributor
Consumer
Fast moving: Designed to be drunk within eighteen
months of release.
Low value: The average bottle price in the UK (before
tax and retailer margin) was $2 in 2010.
Short and Simple: Direct supply chain.

15. FINE WINE
Slow moving: Designed to mature for up to 50 years.
High value: The average traded price for a bottle of wine on
Liv-ex in 2010 was $400.
Long and Complex: Complicated supply chain.

16. ELIMINATE MOVEMENTS
80% of the trade on Liv-ex is in wines from the
last ten vintages, the majority of which are not
for immediate consumption.
So why move it?
Eliminating excessive movement of stock
offers huge upside.

17. THE SOLUTION
We are reorganising our logistics along
central depository lines, which is:
A mechanism for storing and managing
ownership records in multiple locations.
Ownership can be transferred via electronic
transfer, removing the need for physical
movements.

18. THE BENEFITS
• Reduced costs and risk
• Faster working capital cycle time
• Better provenance

19. TO CONCLUDE
The revolution in transparency is well
advanced, but the potential gains
from reorganising the post-trade
infrastructure could be even more
important.
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