"Trebitsch Holding’s Whiskey Investment Scheme Fails: 53 Creditors Left with Nearly 10 Million Crown Losses"

The Trebitsch Holding company promised its customers that if they bought a barrel of whiskey from him, they would make money on it. But they didn’t win.

Trebitsch Holding owes some of them for months and according to the resolution of the City Court in Prague in the bankruptcy register, it has been in bankruptcy since August. The total amount to be paid to at least 53 creditors amounts to nearly 10 million crowns.

The owner of the company, Ondřej Chládek, can file an appeal within 15 days of the bankruptcy declaration, which was published by the court on August 16. So far, however, he denies that the court has decided on bankruptcy. “The trial took place, but it was postponed forever,” said the pro SZ Byznys. “No bankruptcy or insolvency has been decided,” he said.

However, the lawyer Bystrík Bugan pointed out that according to the resolution in the bankruptcy register, the bankruptcy court decided and never suspended the proceedings. He even ordered a review meeting with creditors on November 12.

Since May, Chládek has been offering them alternatives to payment. In addition to building the cask in which the lenders had invested, he also proposed to extend the contract for aging or bottling the distillate from the barrels. The company would send the money from the sale of the bottles to the investors.

According to Cládek, most creditors exercised the option to bottle whiskey from barrels that the company was supposed to sell through its own distribution network. “The bottling is going on now and we should be selling investment bottles in September and October,” he told Pro SZ Byznys.

“By the end of this month, we are planning a facility for investors on our website to find out how their barrel is managed, how many bottles are rolled and how many it’s sold out,” said Chládek.

A few investors also decided to collect barrels from the warehouse. However, some did not apply for the alternatives offered and some did not know about compensation options at all.

For example, one of the creditors, whose name is SZ Byznys but did not want to be named, and who decided to invest in whiskey in 2019, did not receive any offer from Cládek. Like others, he waited several years for the value of the barrel, in which he invested 500 thousand crowns, but the payment did not come.

This case differs from the others because, unlike the investors who signed the bankruptcy proposal for Trebitsch Holding, invested in whiskey through the subsidiary’s offer Česká whiskey sro, which previously offered investments in barrels. Both companies are connected by the name of Ondřej Chládek as owner.

However, the investor has not yet submitted an investment proposal for Česká whiskey, as he has not yet found a joint candidate. According to his words, the investor contacted Cládek several times last year together with the former legal representative.

“He replied that they are already preparing a schedule of installments, and as soon as the money is available, he will start the payment,” the creditor told SZ business, what was the response he received and the his lawyer from the head of whiskey Česká s.ro. he still hasn’t received the payment.

Investors in whiskey from Trebitsch Holding are also familiar with a similar situation – they finally decided to file for bankruptcy, which was subsequently signed by 53 other creditors. Chládek predicts that some investors who chose one of the proposed options decided to file for bankruptcy, “just in case it doesn’t turn out well.” “

On the Facebook page of Česká Trebitsch whiskey, the company announced at the beginning of August about the reconstruction of the distillery and the warehouses, which, according to Chládek, had started several years ago and is now continuing the previous work.

“The work that was going on there was organized about a year or two ago,” explained Chládek. “Now it’s not continuing right now and we plan to do more work around September or October,” he said.

According to the owner, the company was already taking care of the financing of the reconstruction at the beginning of the reconstruction. “All the stuff is stored in that building all the time,” explained Chládek. “We had previously contracted staff as well, now it was just being completed,” he said.

Although, according to the court order in the bankruptcy register, the company should not dispose of its assets after declaring bankruptcy, Chládek explained that all assets belong to České whiskey s.r.o.

According to Bugan, a subsidiary of the parent company that the court declared bankrupt does not automatically have to. But as the lawyer says, when the parent company goes bankrupt, the subsidiaries will also be part of the assets to be sold as part of the sale of assets.