~trailblazers~
‘In the early days, it was very much word of mouth and they would come to us – we didn’t do much advertising at all’
the market price’ of wines. ‘It essentially analyses our competitors and the availability in the marketplace, and through that process it establishes our selling price.’ The platform took the number of wines the
business was offering for sale from about 1,500 to in excess of 6,000. It now offers more than 35,000 wines. Last year, the company sold nearly 10,000 different varieties of wine and it is on track to increase that number this year.
client attraction In gaining new business, Bedini says that, in a sense, clients target the company, rather than the other way around. ‘Private clients who have an interest in fine
wines tend to make it their business to find out who the best traders are,’ he adds. ‘In the early days, it was very much word of mouth and they would come to us – we didn’t do much advertising at all. ‘When we launched, we targeted anyone in
the world who was prepared to buy fine wines at the prices that were being offered. We didn’t discriminate about where they came from because, quite often, the sort of customer we were looking at in those days had residences in more than one place.’ It is this geographical spread of customers
that led to the creation of an office in Hong Kong in early 2008. Bedini explains that in the decade leading up to the opening, the business had already tapped into the growing demand for fine wines in the ‘Tiger economies’ of the Far East. He says the business had quite a strong B2B
presence in America, Europe and the UK, and particularly in Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Even after the Tiger economies crash in
16 business xl
1997, Hong Kong remained a significant market as an entry point for the emerging Chinese economy. ‘A couple of years ago, when Hong Kong
reduced its duty on wine, we debated whether we should open a fully-fledged trading centre, do nothing or take the “softly, softly approach”, which is what we did.’ In addition to expanding its Chinese
presence, Fine+Rare is focusing on fine-tuning its digital strategy, in the form of launching a new online gateway for customers called Portfolio Management. Soft-launched last year, the platform enables clients to value any wines bought anywhere in the world in real time. ‘The main challenge at the moment is how
we capitalise on a very significant opportunity that we have to grow our business much faster than competitors,’ Bedini says. ‘This platform is the beginning of a really big change for us. A lot of our competitors have done something similar, but no-one has our reach.’ It is this potential for future growth that
Bedini hopes will lead to outside investors backing the business for the first time. At the end of last year, Bedini took on adviser Cavendish Corporate Finance to assist the company in its hunt. He explains, ‘We still want to be very much
major shareholders in the business going forward. There are lots of layers to this, but one is that with the business having become the size it is, we believe we need to bring in more brains and more resources at the top end. ‘With some heavyweight
investors coming in, we think that will help us with our strategy, as well as allow Bud and myself to de-risk a little bit as we keep growing and moving forward.’ n
Vital statistics
Year of birth: 1957 Place of birth: Rome, Italy (‘My father’s family is Italian’) Family: Two sons Business hero: Richard Branson Favourite drink: Red burgundy
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