Ex-Dresdner Kleinwort Bankers Buy Lunzer Wine Stake, Start Fund

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Richmond Park Capital LLP, the U.K. merchant bank founded by former Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein executives, bought 29 percent of Lunzer Wine Investments and will start a fund aimed at wealthy clients to invest in Bordeaux.

Richmond Park partners Steven Berger and Pascal Maeter will set up the Lunzer Wine Investments Institutional Fund, Lunzer Chief Executive Officer Peter Lunzer said in an interview in London. The closed-end fund will open this month with 15 million pounds ($21 million) to 20 million pounds in assets and seeks investors willing to spend a minimum of 500,000 pounds apiece.

While plunging stock prices have driven up the value of some rare assets such as gold, the Liv-ex 100 Benchmark Fine Wine Index, comprising wines from a 1989 Chateau Petrus to a 2005 Cheval Blanc, has fallen 17 percent in the past 12 months. It’s up 2.6 percent this year. The decline provides an opportunity for investors to buy popular 2004 and 2005 vintages at reasonable prices, Lunzer said.

“There are people in the financial world that are looking to sell,” he said, adding that while prices of younger wines have slumped, the value of older vintages has held up. “People that were drinking Chateau Latour are still drinking it.”

The wines included in the portfolio will be held for five years and have an average purchase price of about 200 pounds a bottle. Such wines have a “good chance” of doubling in value in five years and could be sold in restaurants for as much as 1,000 pounds, Lunzer said.

Splashing Out

“It’s much safer to go for the middle ground, than the top end,” the executive said. “If you’re only splashing out on the millionaires, then you’re kind of missing the market.”

Wine is one of few categories defying the auction slump in Asia, with more than 80 percent of lots finding buyers at sales held by Christie’s International and Acker Merrall & Condit Co. In January, Sotheby’s Asia Chief Executive Officer Kevin Ching said the company planned to auction wines worth $3 million at its Hong Kong auction in April.

Richmond Park, founded in 2007 by former Dresdner Kleinwort Chief Executive Officer Andrew Pisker and a group of his colleagues, will provide financial expertise and both Berger and Maeter will have seats on the board, Lunzer said.

Berger was head of global merchant banking at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in the 1990s and head of corporate finance at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein for two years before leaving in 2005. Maeter was co-head of global leverage for Dresdner Kleinwort.

Financial details of the purchase of the Lunzer Wine stake weren’t disclosed.