Agarwood Forestry Investment,Comments?

[hank2800]

Has anyone been involved with the Asia Forestry Investment plans in Thailand ( asiaforestry.biz). We had spoke with a rep of the company in a mall in Chiang mai and My wife and I were interested. It advertises a 10-12% return termed over 3-6 years depending on the plantation. I am spooked due to the rate of return but I like the Agarwood Investment and trying to find something in thailand to Invest safely other than 3% at a bank. Anybody been involved with this and had good comments or bad?? Thanks

[ExpatJ]

I would stay away from any 'exotic' investment unless its introduced to you be a trusted friend or family member. If this was real, they wouldn't need to set up a stall in a mall.

[hank2800]

Thanks ExpatJ. I agree, wish I had an aquaintance involved already.

A few notes possibly of interest to others…

• After looking at their website FAQ’s What regulation covers the investment?? They state that they follow Jersey Financial Services Commision. Looking at the JSFC registry database I could not find Asia Forestry. After speaking with a company rep in Bangkok he noted that Asia Forestry was not with JSFC but a different investment arm was.
• The attachment to their brochure says gauranteed returns. The price is based on todays market price of oil and looking forward etc.I think most would agree a bank deposit is a 99.9% gauranteed return , but with this you would have to have faith the company, trees etc would still be there in 6 years. Always difficult to gamble on a small company for 10%.
• As much as we would like to be involved in this it is hard getting out of the gate when small items such as the website is misleading ( I also tried numerous times to send a list of questions to their website submission, but it was HTTP errored each time so not even able to get something in print. For Us we are looking for more of a gauranteed investment and this doesn’t work but for others this could be well worth the investment even with the hiccups.

[richardperry]

I would stay away from any 'exotic' investment unless its introduced to you be a trusted friend or family member. If this was real, they wouldn't need to set up a stall in a mall.

You can have alook at this company, they have already started harvesting trees and can show you actual returns to investers who invested 6 years ago.

Touchwood Asia Co., Ltd.22^nd floor Vanissa Building, 29 Soi Chit Lom, Lumpini, Patumwan, Bangkok 10330. ThailandTel: +66 2 655 0055 Ext. 232Fax: +66 2 251 9195Email: [email protected]Website: www.touchwood.com

[fletchsmile]

Looks an interesting concept.

Not something I would go for based on a website or just speaking sales people though. Didn't like:

- Nowhere does it mention who they are regulated by - if anyone

- Nowhere does it mention risks - not even a general investments fall or rise etc

Really didn't like, their "investment process". Particularly step 3 of transfer your money direct to HK!!! I can't help wondering what sort of licences they have to market overseas investments. Coming from an background which involved investment myself, I'd expect they had some licence. A decent company would say who they are regulated by, and be impressing on us licences they hold.

Add to that, we all know the laws here on land ownership. If the land is owned by Thai as it should be, why the need to send money overseas? Implies some form of management contract.

"Investment Process

Diversifying your portfolio has never been easier. Investing with Touchwood can be completed by following the simple four-step process included below:

1. Complete an online application form. Note: investors in Hong Kong must complete a hard copy of the application.

2. We will send a confirmation e-mail to ensure the details of your order are correct.

3. Transfer your payment to our HSBC Hong Kong bank account.

4. Your investment starts the day upon which we receive payment. We will send you a unique client login, enabling you to monitor your new investment as we begin planting your plot."

[JoePai]

I would stay away from any 'exotic' investment unless its introduced to you be a trusted friend or family member. If this was real, they wouldn't need to set up a stall in a mall.

You can have alook at this company, they have already started harvesting trees and can show you actual returns to investers who invested 6 years ago.

Touchwood Asia Co., Ltd.22^nd floor Vanissa Building, 29 Soi Chit Lom, Lumpini, Patumwan, Bangkok 10330. ThailandTel: +66 2 655 0055 Ext. 232Fax: +66 2 251 9195Email: [email protected]Website: www.touchwood.com

And these 'actual' returns are audited by which company .................. ?

[Gary A]

I think you'll find that the only people who make any money are the ones selling the products needed to stimulate the tree to make resin with the desired properties.

If you think that you just plant the tree and wait for it to grow, you'd be sadly mistaken.

[eljeque]

Run!

[kozen]

Hi Hank,

Where are you from? If you are from Asia like Singapore, HKG etc...you can try investing in Agarwood investment with company that owns the plantations in Thailand and contract will be sign under local jurisdiction so that you will be well-protected.

Thanks ExpatJ. I agree, wish I had an aquaintance involved already.

A few notes possibly of interest to others…

• After looking at their website FAQ's What regulation covers the investment?? They state that they follow Jersey Financial Services Commision. Looking at the JSFC registry database I could not find Asia Forestry. After speaking with a company rep in Bangkok he noted that Asia Forestry was not with JSFC but a different investment arm was.
• The attachment to their brochure says gauranteed returns. The price is based on todays market price of oil and looking forward etc.I think most would agree a bank deposit is a 99.9% gauranteed return , but with this you would have to have faith the company, trees etc would still be there in 6 years. Always difficult to gamble on a small company for 10%.
• As much as we would like to be involved in this it is hard getting out of the gate when small items such as the website is misleading ( I also tried numerous times to send a list of questions to their website submission, but it was HTTP errored each time so not even able to get something in print. For Us we are looking for more of a gauranteed investment and this doesn't work but for others this could be well worth the investment even with the hiccups.

[dingerbel]

Thanks ExpatJ. I agree, wish I had an aquaintance involved already.

A few notes possibly of interest to others

• After looking at their website FAQs What regulation covers the investment?? They state that they follow Jersey Financial Services Commision. Looking at the JSFC registry database I could not find Asia Forestry. After speaking with a company rep in Bangkok he noted that Asia Forestry was not with JSFC but a different investment arm was.
• The attachment to their brochure says gauranteed returns. The price is based on todays market price of oil and looking forward etc.I think most would agree a bank deposit is a 99.9% gauranteed return , but with this you would have to have faith the company, trees etc would still be there in 6 years. Always difficult to gamble on a small company for 10%.
• As much as we would like to be involved in this it is hard getting out of the gate when small items such as the website is misleading ( I also tried numerous times to send a list of questions to their website submission, but it was HTTP errored each time so not even able to get something in print. For Us we are looking for more of a gauranteed investment and this doesnt work but for others this could be well worth the investment even with the hiccups.

At no time has the Asia forestry website stated that the direct tree investment is in anyway regulated by JSFC or regulated by anyone else for that matter, our forestry fund the Asia Renewable Resources Fund is regulated and domiciled in Luxembourg by KMG Capital. I would like to know who you spoke with at Asia Foresty or Treedom investments who told you that any part of our business was regulated by JSFC, we have over 100 employees within the Treedom group, 11 are farang. out of the people (Thai) that would know about the investments within the company a small handful speak english well enough to have the confidence to portray this to you, the rest would call me over to explain.

The 12%pa guarantee is not based on future oil sales or prices, we give a forward contract for those trees to each individual at the outset, 12% is the minimum amount per year we guarantee, however, if we are selling our oil at a higher price, due to its grade, we then share that with the investor. We are currently running at 79.4% if you bought 100 trees 6 yrs ago, this is forecast to steadily rise as the mistakes that were made in the early years of the business start to fade.

I invite anybody who wishes to see our nursery, plantations, Oud oil production facility, our office and team to contact me, I am taking some people to Trat on the 5th of July and I have some places remaining, it's an all day trip, but I will by you lunch! :-)

[jamescollister]

No nothing about the company, but if you search the farming forum you will find a threat about it, Seem to remember a guy last year who could not find a buyer. All sounded good until he tried to sell the stuff. Jim

[dingerbel]

No nothing about the company, but if you search the farming forum you will find a threat about it, Seem to remember a guy last year who could not find a buyer. All sounded good until he tried to sell the stuff. Jim

This is right, planting the trees yourself in your back garden just isn't Economically viable because you don't have the means to extract the oil via an Oud oil production facility like ours in Trat. We wouldn't buy trees from a anywhere else as we can not guarantee the quality for the production of our Oud oil hence why we grow from seeds from our own trees.

[jamescollister]

No nothing about the company, but if you search the farming forum you will find a threat about it, Seem to remember a guy last year who could not find a buyer. All sounded good until he tried to sell the stuff. Jim

This is right, planting the trees yourself in your back garden just isn't Economically viable because you don't have the means to extract the oil via an Oud oil production facility like ours in Trat. We wouldn't buy trees from a anywhere else as we can not guarantee the quality for the production of our Oud oil hence why we grow from seeds from our own trees.

Don't think they were planting in their back yards, here's a posting from 2007.

• Advanced Members
  
• 
  
• 9,066 posts
  

• 
  

Posted 2007-05-28 13:41:57

This is a copy and paste. I wanted to list the source but I can't find it back. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During recent years about 7,500 hectares or 7.5 million trees of agarwood have been planted in Laos. In order to make good profits from agarwood trees it is necessary to apply a treatment to induce formation of the valuable agarwood resin. Without an effective inducement technique very few trees would produce agarwood and most would only be good for firewood as the wood is too soft to make good timber. It was reported in the Bangkok Post (Outlook, 30 July 2006) that many disappointed growers in Thailand have cut down thousands of rai of agarwood trees due to lack of resin in their trees.

The Lao deal had farang investers and I believe they can't sell the stuff. Jim

PS how many rai to you have producing.

Edited June 25, 2012 by jamescollister

[samsiam]

You could try one of the container parks on bangna-trad

If this is anything but content-free wit, please expand.

I'm very interested in the topic of container-based housing, and if there are any communities already doing this would appreciate any details.

There is a guy on here growing it in laos.