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Welcome to the Alternative Investments Experimental Blog!

Increase your knowledge about alternative investments!
This blog mainly focus on stock market-alternative investments such as forest investments, land investments, property investments, hedge funds, forex investments, and other interesting ways of making money.

I analyze and buy alternative investments with my own money. This gives you fun reading and a guideline how to invest your own money in alternative investments by following my success and learning from my mistakes! :-)


Saturday, May 25, 2013

Eucalyptus forestry investment in Brazil with Greenwood Management


 



One of the investments I made last year must be one of the most difficult to spell: Eucalyptus!

Eucalyptus is a type of tree that is very common in Australia and was introduced to Brazil in 1910, for timber substitution and the charcoal industry. It has thrived in the local environment, and today there are around 5 million hectares planted. The wood is highly valued by the charcoal and pulp and paper industries. Brazil's plantations have world-record rates of growth, typically over 40 cubic metres per hectare per year, and commercial harvesting occurs after year 5. The local iron producers in Brazil rely heavily on sustainably grown Eucalyptus for charcoal; this has greatly pushed up the price of charcoal in recent years. The plantations are generally owned and operated for national and international industry by timber asset companies such as Thomson Forestry, Greenwood Management or cellulose producers such as Aracruz Celluloseand Stora Enso (Source: Wikipedia.com).

This particular investment has been made with Greenwood Management, which is one of the leading forestry asset management companies in Europe. Greenwood Management has offices in several countries in Europe such as Denmark, Spain and Portugal but also in North America (Canada).

The investment idea is to have private investors to invest in large scale forestry operations. In this case Eucalyptus in Brazil, and during the investment period (6-8 years) Greenwood Management will actively manage the investment. Once the investment period is over, the Eucalyptus will be used for char-coal.

According to the investment prospect, the Brazilian congress has recently passed a law that required all steel producers to use char-coal from non-native species instead of using the fossil fuel coking coal, in order to lower CO2 emissions. And the use of charcoal made from naturally growing native trees will be banned to combat deforestation. The underlying profitable assumption for this investment is that the price of charcoal made of eucalyptus will increase.
 


I have this far had a positive impression of Greenwood Management. The initial investment process was easy, the account manager was professional, and I have this far received several newsletters describing the progress of the investments and Greenwood Management’s co-operation with local university focusing on agriculture. However, if I would have been them I would have given me calls more often (I haven’t received any since I made the investment) to try to sell more investment products! But on the other hand, it is nice with a company not pushing the investment portfolio too much. Also, a referral scheme has been available which could be beneficial for the investor if he/she has friends that might be interested to invest!



Investment summary
Investment level
(Low: 0-5 000 EUR/7 000USD, Medium: 10 000 EUR/14 000 USD, High: >10 000 EUR/14 000 USD)
Medium.
Risk
(low, medium, high)
Medium.
In general forestry investments are considered
low risk, but the char-coal prices have fluctuated
quite a lot during the past. Since the investment
is based on this parameter I see this as a
medium risk.
Estimated ROI per year
Around 11%.
Length of investment
(<1 year short, 1-5 years medium, > 5 years long)
Long.
Around 5-7 years
 

I will keep you updated on my blog about the progress of this investment since I still have a few years to go before the investment is done. So stay tuned and subscribe to my blog (at the top right on my blog) - don’t miss out on more interesting stories!

Note: photos above come from the Eucalyptus investment prospect of Greenwood management

 

13 comments:

  1. I to have investid with Greenwood Management and visited the company in Brazil to see they forest plantation. Impresed with scale of this company in Brazil look forewood to reading your update in future.

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  2. Good to hear that you have been to the plantation site and that the plantation seems to be managed well. Let's hold our thumbs for a prosperous investment!

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  3. I see that this company has included ariel footage on their Flickr account of some of their forestry projects over in Brazil which is quite impressive.
    There are quite a few pictures and videos such as this http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenwood-management/12103431775/

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  4. Hi John, thanks for sharing the link. It does look impressive!

    Br,
    Christian

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  5. The Company GREENWOOD MANAGEMENT ApS is under compulsory dissolution.

    Attorney Bo Vadt Christensen has been appointed liquidator by the court

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  6. Greenwood Management is currently in the process of restructuring its European operations due to changes in tax regimes between Brazil and Danish holding companies, Due to this the Danish company will be dissolved (eventually) being replaced with a new structure which will incorporate a Brazilian and Canadian structure in order to return capital back to Europe in a more tax efficient manner. As clients deal directly with our operating companies and not directly with the holding company as such this does not affect them directly whilst an announcement is due to be made later this week as a matter of course.

    This will of course be made clear at the time of change over on all our websites etc. Should anyone want further information they can contact us on relations@greenwood-management.com

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  7. Hi, thanks for the heads up. I have also received this information in written from Greenwood mgt.

    Br,
    Christian

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  8. Greenwood Management have also posted some video on Vimeo of Christmas trees being harvested http://vimeo.com/m/113006252
    I would be interested in finding out from others how this project has gone.

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  9. Do you have any news on this investment?

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  10. Replies
    1. Hi, It is about 2 years left before the investment will be realized so we have to wait and see :-)

      Br
      Christian

      Delete
  11. I have investment with GWM for christmas trees in Canada. The first payment was due in March 2017. I have not yet received any payment nor report of the harvest. I requested it once about 2 months back. I wonder if others are receiving payments from GWM?

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  12. I have investments with GWM in the Acacia project. The first return was due 2 years ago and until now I haven't seen any return neither. I know other 12 people that have invested with GMW in different projects and none has received any money so far. Strange...

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