Black-owned Uncle Nearest whiskey brand is placed under a receivership

The role of CEO Fawn Weaver going forward is in question while the brand assumes a new receiver.

The future of the reportedly billion-dollar, Black-owned whiskey brand, “Uncle Nearest,” is now dependent on what it can do while under a receivership. The role of its founder, Fawn Weaver, also hangs in the balance.

According to the New York Times, a federal judge in Tennessee ruled in favor of one of the brand’s lenders in a lawsuit, which was filed in July. The lender, Farm Credit Mid America, claimed in the suit that Uncle Nearest had defaulted on $108 million in three separate loans, not including interest. This, according to the initial agreement between the lender and the whiskey brand, is grounds for a receivership.

The suit also alleges that the company misused loans to purchase a $2 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard and used barrels of whiskey as collateral for the loan, then sold the barrels to pay off outstanding loans from other lenders.

The order says that the receivership is needed to safeguard the disputed assets and protect the investment from Farm Credit.

The question of CEO Weaver’s role and her standing in the company has not been resolved yet. Fawn and her husband, Keith Weaver, founded the brand in 2017. The name was inspired by the story of the first known African American whiskey distiller, Nathan “Nearest” Green, who may have helped create the formula for Jack Daniel’s whiskey.

In the order, the judge wrote that the receivership can allow for her “to market Uncle Nearest and further build the brand.”

“By keeping the Weavers involved in this way, they could mitigate any potential brand damage that a receivership might entail,” said the order from the judge. Farm Credit agreed that Weaver should continue to market the brand.

The Weavers responded to the lawsuit by blaming the company’s former chief financial officer, Mike Senzaki, who they claimed had deceived them by overstating the brand’s whiskey barrel inventory, which led to Farm Credit increasing its credit by $24 million. They fired Senzaki as a result. They also rebutted the lender’s claims that the company was misusing funds on its Martha’s Vineyard property, submitting emails and travel records showing that representatives from Farm Credit had visited the property and participated in recreational and social activities during their stay.

Fawn also posted a video on Instagram on August 3 to defend the brand against the claims and asked followers to “clear the shelves” of all of their distributors to show there is demand for the whiskey brand.

“My response has been filed, and I trust that the truth will now get just as much attention on social media and in the press as the intentional misleadings and hit pieces,” she said.  

After the decision came out yesterday, Fawn posted again on Instagram a scene from “Black Panther” where the protagonist T’Challa is testing his new vibranium suit.

“The race is not given to the swift. Easy is never the expectation or goal,” she wrote in the caption.

The Weavers and Farm Credit have until August 20 to submit candidate proposals for the new receiver.