Brewdog

Martynt74 · Monday at 09:03

Heads up for anyone that was invested. @Jokester i think you were involved.

James Watt has launched a new brewery and offering equal shares for free to previous equity punks

Second Best

If you were a BrewDog Equity Punk you can claim the exact stake you once held for free, in a new beer business I am going to find and build.

www.secondbest.beer

Imagine it'll follow with begging for additional investment, but lets see

Jokester · Monday at 09:07

Yeah I wasn’t going to bother but got the email from Watt about it last night so might as well stick my name in and see if anything comes of it.

Craft beer bubble has well and truly burst so doubt much will come of it.

Martynt74 · Monday at 09:16

Yeah, i only saw the email too as was stuck in my junk. Can't see many ex equity punks rushing out to try any of his beers either.

I'm also a bit baffled by the name!

UberTiger · Monday at 09:21

Wasn’t the whole equity thing a con in the end last time? Why would anyone give this guy money?

Martynt74 · Monday at 09:23

UberTiger said:
Wasn’t the whole equity thing a con in the end last time? Why would anyone give this guy money?

Not a con as such. I got in around the 3rd round and made around 5x my investment, with another 1.5x that i lost at the end when they got bought out. Earlier investors probably made 20-30x

There were definitely a lot of people who bought in late and lost out considerably that didn't seem to understand what they were buying into. A combination of multiple poor management decisions then pretty much screwed the whole company

Jokester · Monday at 09:24

UberTiger said:
Wasn’t the whole equity thing a con in the end last time? Why would anyone give this guy money?

Watt and the other lad sold out the company to a venture firm, took their £50m and shafted all the share holders, not just the EPs. So yeah, won’t get anymore cash out of me, even in return for free beer and giveaways.

200sols · Monday at 09:28

UberTiger said:
Wasn’t the whole equity thing a con in the end last time? Why would anyone give this guy money?

Not such a con, people just did not seem to understand the risk of such an investment despite all the warnings.

Shadowness · Monday at 11:45

Jokester said:
Craft beer bubble has well and truly burst

Why do you say that?

Martynt74 · Monday at 11:47

I imagine he means the bubble of new breweries popping up constantly and getting big valuations (Brewdog, Beavertown etc)

It's still as popular as ever, but i don't think there's space for a newcomer to get massive like there was 15 years ago.

Shadowness · Monday at 11:56

Martynt74 said:
I imagine he means the bubble of new breweries popping up constantly and getting big valuations (Brewdog, Beavertown etc)

It's still as popular as ever, but i don't think there's space for a newcomer to get massive like there was 15 years ago.

No, but most of them don't want to be 'massive'. The appeal of craft beer is that they are the little men, not the corporate giants. As soon as they sell out, their brand loyalty is dead.

There is still big (relatively) brewers in the UK, Northern Monk etc who still make great stuff (and still good stuff for the supermarkets, despite being made to a cost).

I've no idea what the turnover of Deya, Track and other relatively big craft breweries are, but there's still space for new breweries to pop up and make noise in this scene (thinking of Azvex, Beak, Two Flint etc).

Jokester · Monday at 17:53

Shadowness said:
Why do you say that?

Microbreweries are now closing at a faster rate than new ones are popping up apparently. Pretty sure the craft gin and whisky industry is now peaked as well.

silvagti · Monday at 18:18

200sols said:
Not such a con, people just did not seem to understand the risk of such an investment despite all the warnings.

I'm not so sure as it always sounded like an outright scam when you read what the "share/equity" scheme actually was. From what I can see Watt basically conned people into buying second class b-grade "shares" in the private company that he was able to bascially use as a cheap loan to prop up the business whilst he ran off with all the assets.

Watt effectively sold out the company from under everyone to cash in his percentage whilst everyone else took the hit. I'm surprised what he did was within the law honestly and that there hasn't been any legal impact for him.

Jokester · Monday at 18:27

silvagti said:
I'm not so sure as it always sounded like an outright scam when you read what the "share/equity" scheme actually was. From what I can see Watt basically conned people into buying second class b-grade "shares" in the private company that he was able to bascially use as a cheap loan to prop up the business whilst he ran off with all the assets.

Watt effectively sold out the company from under everyone to cash in his percentage whilst everyone else took the hit. I'm surprised what he did was within the law honestly and that there hasn't been any legal impact for him.

It wasn't just the EP shareholders that were shafted, I don't think the other A-grade shareholders probably fully understood at the time what the consequences of the deal was (if they were made aware at all). Certainly I don't think they acted in the best interests of any of the shareholders with that deal, what money was raised from the asset selloff to Tilray went straight to the equity firm and RBS I think it was, don't think any shareholders saw anything at all, let alone EPs.

To be fair, even the EPs were offered the option of selling a portion of their share holding as part of the deal.

Martynt74 · Monday at 20:48

Jokester said:
To be fair, even the EPs were offered the option of selling a portion of their share holding as part of the deal.

Yeah. I took that. Think it worked out around £1300 or so as a maximum sale which worked out around 20% of my total value.
The valuation by TSG was always a bit stupid and I think they likely did it to massage Watts ego to help slip in that 18% compounding return so made sense to take advantage of it.

I sold more during one of the selling days but I’m glad to be rid of it even allowing for the end loss of shares. The management were just making awful decisions and broken promises time after time.

Jokester · Monday at 21:09

Martynt74 said:
Yeah. I took that. Think it worked out around £1300 or so as a maximum sale which worked out around 20% of my total value.
The valuation by TSG was always a bit stupid and I think they likely did it to massage Watts ego to help slip in that 18% compounding return so made sense to take advantage of it.

I sold more during one of the selling days but I’m glad to be rid of it even allowing for the end loss of shares. The management were just making awful decisions and broken promises time after time.

The culture definitely changed after TSG got involved, basically just became an other big brewer. Even things like eco friendly starch carrier bags were quickly dropped for cheap plastic bags to try and boost profits.