GWD Forestry Investment

JohnB1974 · 26 July 2017 at 10:28AM

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.

jammyjoe · 27 July 2017 at 9:22AM

Hi JohnB1974,
It's been a few weeks since my last post. According to your post above,
If you say your an old employee, then I take it that yiu are a long term employee, still working for gwd.
From my original thread, I believe clients were paid 2015 payments and at least that's progress. There are many other payments due and as stated from my original thread 2016 payments are still outstanding. I will continue to post the good posts until progressive payments are made.

Gadfium · 27 July 2017 at 9:30AM

Gadfium wrote: »

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.....

Bingo!!! We have a winner :beer:

JohnB1974 wrote: »

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.

Gambler101 · 27 July 2017 at 9:37AM

Whenever a new poster comes along it just adds to the suspicion that its a scam lol

I dont google my old company, then sign up to forums to defend them if I see a negative thread lol who does that!!!

Malthusian · 27 July 2017 at 10:01AM

JohnB1974 wrote: »

They have been around for 10 years or so now and have a number of verified forestry projects.

That's odd considering gwdforestry.com was only registered in July 2014.

Most of those forestry projects have independent valuations attached by verifiable third parties

Excellent news, they will have no problem arranging for the frustrated investors in this thread to sell their investments at market value then.

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.

Ah, yes, those notoriously pernickety Cypriot and Brazilian bureaucrats.

I'm not sure how setting up Cypriot and Danish holding companies was supposed to improve the prospects of the scheme. Unless, of course, the idea was to attract another load of new investors' funds in order to keep paying off the old ones. No, wait, it couldn't be that, because that would be Ponzi fraud.

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.

They're so short of funds they can't afford a ream of A4 paper on which to send updates to their investors but they're hoping to break into new international markets for their trees? How are they going to contact the prospective new buyers - burn the trees and send smoke signals?

eskbanker · 27 July 2017 at 10:59AM

Malthusian wrote: »

They're so short of funds they can't afford a ream of A4 paper on which to send updates to their investors

Paper doesn't grow on trees you know - oh, wait....

mejo2 · 30 July 2017 at 11:57AM

JohnB1974, dont you think the best way for GWD forestry to prevent accusations like the ones on this website is for your company to payout returns to their clients in a timely manner as promised when we made the investments? I don't care that the returns are not 15% per year as was promised because of recession and political problems in Brazil, the important thing is that something is paid out! Else this voice of resentment will only intensify and result in legal action against GWD if that money simply disappears.

JohnB1974 · 31 July 2017 at 1:47PM

I agree that the payments should be made in a timely manner however some things are outside of the control of the company and have resulted in a delay in regards to the projected harvest dates expected at the start of the project. However all projects are still on course to be harvested in line with those agreements. some bureaucracy did get in the way resulting in the company not obtaining the correct environmental licences to harvest but this was resolved in November. Since that time the company has harvested a small proportion of timber already ahead of full harvest as a test run with the view of supplying a locally based wood user.

In regards to the projects anyone can check google earth historically and see the various sites that have been developed over the years and of course there are independent valuations on the majority of those sites.

The revenue received from the sale of the timber will also be reported independently in the coming months.

Malthusian · 31 July 2017 at 2:14PM

JohnB1974 wrote: »

In regards to the projects anyone can check google earth historically and see the various sites that have been developed over the years

Anyone can also check the whois of the company's domain name and see that their website was only registered in 2014, despite your claim that they have been in business since 2007. I don't see how this contradiction is resolved by old satellite pictures of forests.

and of course there are independent valuations on the majority of those sites.

Why can the investors not sell their investments at those independent valuations?

JohnB1974 · 31 July 2017 at 5:55PM

If you notice the dates some of the actual clients of the company have mentioned you will see that there has been some activity previous to the registration of the website you have conducted a whois search for. However you can view this registration for the other companies websites which I'm sure clients of the company will be able to provide ( I appear to be restricted from posting the URL for this information as a new poster to this forum). The reason I mentioned the satellite pictures is its pretty clear as you can see from the historical imagery the land being cleared, planted and growing since the company was established. There is also a lot of images taken from the projects over the years which you can see have been posted over the years.

Original projections for the project can be seen also be found at gwm-tv(dot)com/financial_projections and these were based upon yield projections produced independently by recognised third parties. The projects themselves have also been reported on over the years in a number of independent studies.

There are several website currently being produced in order to provide as much information as possible to clients in as balanced a way as possible and in specific relation to individual projects. The first site will be located at gwd-eucalyptus(dot)com in relation to the companies eucalyptus projects progressed in 2009. The site is due to be completed in the coming weeks as a short term fix to reporting as much of the information as possible to clients. The website will also include the current valuations of the projects, and results from the harvesting operations which are expected to start in the next few months. All values will be reported and I believe these values returned will also be registered through the central bank as required by law.

Clients of the company can of course direct them however they see fit.

GWD Forestry Investment

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