THE WINE MERCHANT. An independent magazine for independent retailers
Issue 83, August 2019
Dog of the Month: Margaux Stone Vine & Sun, Twyford
Harvest festival Six independents make their contribution to the Mendoza vintage effort – page 20
Contain your excitement! Manchester’s newest independent hatches: see page 6
Borough Wines sold for just £60k Muriel Chatel retains control after London independent enters administration with debts of £1.3m
B
orough Wines, which collapsed
into administration at the end of
May with debts of almost £1.3m,
has been bought in a pre-pack sale for just under £60,000.
Administrator Mazars said there had
been “no reasonable prospect of rescuing the group in its existing form as a going
concern” and that the deal, secured with Borough founder Muriel Chatel and a French backer, represented a better
outcome for creditors than liquidation.
The biggest chunk of debt (£779,000)
was actually to Expression du Terroir Ltd, a business within the Borough group which sourced and supplied stock.
Many of Borough’s other creditors
included small French wine producers, some UK brewers and distillers and a
number of logistics companies. Armit was owed £4,867, Ehrmanns £4,720, Boutinot £3,058 and Sipsmith £3,652.
Mazars reported that Borough Wines,
which started on a stall at Borough Market in 2002, had expanded to nine units but recently closed six sites “as a result of
declining turnover and increasing losses”. The sale of the business to Spirits of
Borough, owned by Muriel Chatel and
Arthur de Chalus, includes £43,760 of stock and all equipment, along with goodwill, intellectual property and customer
records. The company has secured an initial three-month lease at the Stoke Newington branch.
Chatel said that rent demands had been
“like a hoop around our neck”.
Continues page five