Ultimate beneficial ownership is very similar to holding something in trust. The Trustee, in our case would be Hackstons and we store and manage the casks on behalf of the ultimate beneficial owner. We have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure your casks are kept safe whilst in our Trust.
So this includes but is not limited to, the storage and insurance of your cask. So we keep your casks in a company client account and then invoice you separately for storage and insurance.
The certificate of ownership gives the end user (customer) what is known as the beneficial rights to the title of the cask.
Simply by holding the above documentation such as a certificate of ownership, you become the Ultimate Beneficiary Owner (UBO), which means that while the warehouse's records will state the name of the brokerage (Hackstons), due to you holding both the purchase invoice and the certificate of ownership your claim holds absolute legal precedence.
As this is a model that could be susceptible to unscrupulous activity, we have instructed an independent auditor to audit all stock and then contact customers directly to confirm their findings. This eliminates the question, 'Does my stock exist?', whilst simultaneously eliminating the ability for the same cask(s) to be sold on to multiple customers.
We believe we have pioneered this independent auditing process and for those that are unable to open an account with a warehouse, the hope is that within the next 2 years this can become industry standard as another measure for a customers peace of mind when purchasing a cask.
