Key Post Investment in Irish Forestry Funds

People, a plantation belonging to one of the forestry investment plans adjoins my property.
Twice in 7 years it caught fire for want of a fireline, estimated cost €300. The land it was planted on was at best marginal for forestry. At best it will make pulp on that section.
The management of some of forest sites for investment funds I notice is piss poor. Timber left lying about, instead of selling it to a firewood processor.... Repeated failed plantings, up to 4 attempts to get a crop reestablished on a clearfell site. I advised a young forester how to actually do it and it has taken. I was shocked at his inability.
 
The High Court has granted the Investors the right of acscess to all the paperwork regarding the sale of the Forestry Investments,
The Liquidator has to 2nd February to hand over the documents.
Copy of the Court Order attached.
 

Attachments

  • Perfected Court of Appeal Order dated 1 December 2022.doc
    49 KB · Views: 233
 
Hi I just found this post recently & am also try8ng to follow up on uncashed cheque from first f f. No reply from Alan Fitzpatrick
? Would appreciate any up / further details such email for him. Thanks blaithin
 
Blaithin3 said:
Hi I just found this post recently & am also try8ng to follow up on uncashed cheque from first f f. No reply from Alan Fitzpatrick
? Would appreciate any up / further details such email for him. Thanks blaithin
Click to expand...
Any use?

Key Post - Investment in Irish Forestry Funds

Hi Marco, I just saw your note, Mathesons Solicitors, Dublin can conform the genuine cause we are fighting, We have raised more than €65,000 to date to fund the action with over 300 investors involved, We have not gone to the newspapers/radio or t.v. at this time. Lar Sheeran
www.askaboutmoney.com
 
Hi all, I too am coming to this very late in the day not realising there was a forum where others have the same story as myself to tell. I invested with this same company in Aug 1999, received a certificate, and did not hear from them until I contacted their offices in 2006 requesting previous years financial statements, following this I received financial statements in the post from them for years ending Dec 2002 and 2003, since then I have tried to contact their offices but have not had any success. I would be grateful if anyone could let me know if they have succeeded in having their investment funds returned or if I can join a group of investors currently fighting this case?
 
Gazim1 said:
WE have received the papers from the Liquidator and are reviewing them at this time
Click to expand...
Hi Gazim, Is it too late to join your group in fighting this case? as mentioned in my previous post above, I have hard copies of the financial returns for 2002/2003 if these are of any help?
 
Think that this is a twin track thread so depends on what you’re looking for albeit the latter action affects everyone. Some are looking for their cheques reissued (as I was ) with no luck in contacting or getting a response from the liquidator. Also contacted the ODCE. Nothing from there either. The others (from what I understand) are unhappy with the ‘premature’ liquidation of the funds (without shareholder consultation) and the associated returns relative to the projected and are litigating. I contributed to the fund initially but haven’t heard anything since the first HC judgment in March 22. The HC action was coordinated through Lar Sheeran. Haven’t seen anything since.

Edit: Apologies it would seem that Gazim1 has provided an update from this March. Not sure after that or what the review of the documents has found.
 
Last edited:
The appeal case is ongoing, however a conflict of interest has arisen among the legal team so a new team has to be put in place. Apparently it is difficult to find a firm that does not already have a connection to AXA (to whom the forestry funds were sold) or other relevant parties.

But the fight continues. The group coordinating the appeal has been working on assembling a full list of the orginal shareholders.
 
I found my certificate couple of weeks ago completely forgot about them. I had moved addresses/Countries a couple of times

started going through the contacts on the forestry fund I got Paul Brosnan VEON and they sent me on to Mr. fitzpatrick's

Took him 2 weeks to reply my e-mail for two weeks and I did the forms with the very steep fee, I haven't heard anything in three weeks so I started looking on the Internet and I found this Forum.

How do we register that we still have original certificates
anything new updates since the start to the summer?

it's going to take a while to go through the 3000 updates but thank you for not giving up.
 
Found my certificate this evening. Hugely disappointed in the return and lack of transparency regarding the whole process.
 
Returned from abroad a few months back and found some Forestry shares I'd completely forgotten about. When I Googled I found this site and what appears to be a complete mess that shareholders have been put through. I'm wondering how to proceed as contacting the Liquidator doesn't seem to yield results! I'm really miffed that there is no proper government regulation on this. Any suggestions please.
 

Irish timber sales and exports set to double, as Sitka plantations from Eighties and Nineties mature​

In the mid-1990s we were planting over 20,000 hectares a year
https://www.askaboutmoney.com/internal-gallery%3A%7C0 (<div class="unknown-img"> <amp-img src="https://focus.independent.ie/thumbor/hLdFtoYALGZDjBr25EPeXfha3FU=/0x0:1024x682/1240x0/prod-mh-ireland/9fb90e80-cc87-40a1-b814-27c5500fadda/228aeaf5-2b0e-492c-8424-a047bd86a4b6/9fb90e80-cc87-40a1-b814-27c5500fadda.jpg" class="contain bbImage " alt="Image Gallery 0" layout="fill"></amp-img> </div>)

Fearghal O'Connor
September 8 2024 2:30 AM​


Irish timber sales to the UK could double to €2bn a year over the next 15 years, with a huge amount of Irish commercial forestry set to mature, according to one industry lobby group.​

Last week Forestry Industries Ireland (FII) met its UK counterpart, Confor, in Belfast.
“This is a big market opportunity for Irish commercial forestry,” said FII director Mark MacAuley.
The UK supplies only 20pc of its own timber needs and is the world’s second biggest importer
Click to expand...
“We’ve developed this big national resource of 400,000 hectares of Sitka spruce planted in the Eighties and Nineties that will be available over the next 15 years or so. The timing is good, with huge demand predicted in the UK for that time period.”
The maturation of these forests will double the supply of Irish timber.
“We’ll also be looking to double our exports,” he said. “This year is not necessarily a boom year for timber sales in the UK, but they’re expecting big numbers down the road.”
ADVERTISEMENT
The UK supplies only 20pc of its own timber needs and is the world’s second biggest importer of timber. It imports about 6m cubic metres of sawn softwood a year – mainly from Scandinavia – with Ireland supplying about 7pc in total. That is currently worth about €1bn.
“We are looking to grow that market share, as it’s really the only volume export market that we have,” said McAuley.
But the supply boom may not last beyond a 15-year period, he said.
The peak for planting in Ireland was in the mid-1990s when we were planting over 20,000 hectares a year.
“Now we are only planting 2,000 hectares,” he said.
 
Without prejudicing anything or defaming anyone, what is the gist of this case? The nature of these funds and how they would operate was abundantly clear from the outset, and this was flagged equally abundantly on AAM at the time.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register