GWD Forestry Investment
Comments
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We have also had two further people say they have not received payments due to them from their investments, yet we have heard no-one saying they have successfully sold their investments in line with the independent third party valuations, as JohnB1974 claimed they can.0
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Hello,
i have invested in GWD from 2010- 2012. Mostly Eucalyptus in Brazil. so far did not receive any returns.
would like to know other investors experience.
especially if anyone received any kind of payment from GWD.
rama88krishnan@gmail.com0 -
Speak of the devil and he shall appear?All this thread needs is a new poster telling everyone how many £thousands they have made in this scam investment and just how damn great it is.....
I thought it was worth my comments as an old employee of the company seeing the comments posted on here by other users. I (think) I can say with some certainty that GWD from what I have seen has never been run as any type of fraud. They have been around for 10 years or so now and have a number of verified forestry projects. Most of those forestry projects have independent valuations attached by verifiable third parties, and the company and its forestry projects are also reported on by a recognised European institution in relation to verified growth rates of its projects so if it were a fraud I doubt it would ever go this far.
GWD are not regulated which is an issue for the company and only causes people to assume the worst, however It is certainly not the only forestry company to be unregulated. The company did start the process of setting up a regulated “pooled” forestry fund some time ago in order to provide a bit more clarity. The only reason it did not launch is due to changes within Cyprus regarding tax rates and changes in Brazils stance towards Danish holding companies.
Having said this I’m pretty sure the company is facing some pretty big challenges with its projects in Brazil at the moment. There is no denying Brazil is in the worst recession it has seen in decades, and its suffering from a lot of political and social unrest which has been widely publicised. The majority of the companies projects would also be effected by the ongoing drought in Brazil as well which is apparently the worst drought the country has seen in over 80 years. As most of their projects in Brazil were focussed on producing timber for the domestic market I think this will hit the companies Brazilian projects pretty hard, whilst the fall in the value of the Brazilian real against the euro and increasing inflation rates will drive the costs of harvesting and transporting the timber up. From what I understand GWD is looking at alternative markets outside of Brazil which goes way beyond their contractual obligations to clients. I believe if it there was any intention of not harvesting the timber and paying back clients then they would be taking the easy route right now and not looking at alternative markets in order to achieve the best rates for their timber projects. One thing is for sure and that is they are not allocating enough funds in order to be able to report on a more regular basis to their clients.
Anyway thats my take on the company for what its worth.0 -
Same issues with GWD.
Either extremely badly run business or out and out scam.
Badly run business and low returns I can accept, but the lack of information and transparency makes me think that it is a scam. I have had so many excuses it would be funny if there wasn't my retirement savings involved...
Would be very happy to coordinate with other investors to see if there is anything that can be done.
They do seem to have some land titles but they don't appear to be registered to the companies that issue the contracts. They sell the rights to the harvest from a particular plot of land but not the land itself. I suspect that they have sold more 'rights' than they have land.
There is a GWD Forestry Ltd registered in Ireland and the companies house records show the company is basically dormant and has no assets. Similarly there is a GWD Forestry in Canada that may own some land (which may or may not be free from encumbrances) . Guess where the contracts are issued from!
The director of the Irish company is Gordon Bernard Sampson who is a also a signature to some contracts. According to Irish companies house records he is resident in Cheshire in the UK (full address available).
I am wondering whether he can be reported to the Irish authorities (Garda financial crime unit) or, due to his stated residence in the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority.
I would welcome hearing from anyone interested in exploring the possibility of pursuing some form of action or at least forcing a more transparent disclosure from the company.0 -
Hi all
just and update
I got a "harvest 2016 report" from GWD regarding the christmas trees project. On it there is a very detailed description of the 2016 Harvest ( even some summary of the 2014 and 2015 harvesting season) and how many trees they sold ( different sizes , numbers and prices)
As I told before I can say with facts that those farms exist and they are growing christmas trees there. Unfortunately they appear to be very amateurish company and with a terrible communication team. Maybe yes they are a scam, but if there is a scam, also there are trees growing and they are selling them the way they can
In my case , given this was my "first harvest" ( year 3 of my invest), only small tabletop trees were expected to be harvested and sold ( and a payment for them was expected). They already told me that they WILL NOT receive enough orders for small tabletop trees and then only very few clients received a payment . In my case, no trees were harvested.....so no payments....
Thats all information I can give. anyone had similar response?0 -
I can say for sure that their communications have been amateurish. I can't say for sure whether it's a scam. I was due my 1st return (table top Christmas trees) in March of this year and have been chasing regularly. Information is not very forthcoming to say the least. I was told (back in August, I think; maybe July) that the reason for the late payment was due to some of their customers being late with paying them. This, I get. That's part of business. What is inexcusable is me needing to constantly call them (because the account manager is OOO for various reasons) to get an update when their newsletters make it sound like things are going great. I was told I would get an official update towards the end of August as my account manager had to wait for management to finalize / ok it. Still nothing...
I'm still hopeful that it's just poorly run / facing challenges but I'm becoming less and less convinced as time passes without communication. I was also told that in preceding years, investors have been paid on time and this year was an unfortunate start. This seems to not be the case at all. Haven't read each and every comment in this forum yet but I have seen one investor say they have been paid (albeit late). Has anyone else invested in the Christmas Tree project and been paid?0 -
Hi all.
Similar story for me too unfortunately. Have invested in Xmas trees but as yet nil return for me. Account mangers gone to ground, not replying to emails or calls.
Concerned
:( 0 -
Moneysworth wrote: »Hi all.
Similar story for me too unfortunately. Have invested in Xmas trees but as yet nil return for me. Account mangers gone to ground, not replying to emails or calls.
Concerned:(
Can't help, but love the appropriate typo.0 -
AnotherJoe wrote: »Can't help, but love the appropriate typo.
LOL. Obvious that the mangers would be away when you think about it.0 -
i am trying to contact the owner of Gwd forestry gordon Sampson does any one have his address0
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