Dear all,
is there any bank/company/fund that will allow me to invest in woods and forests?
I've heard there is a good return and well.. it's very green


Thanks
A

You want us to google the answers to your questions?

Have a look here:
https://de.oikocredit.ch/geldanlage-...landwirtschaft

https://de.oikocredit.ch/weltweite-f...31350000000066

Happened onto this site today. Figured Id pass it on.
https://www.sparkonto.org/baum-sparp...rohstoff-holz/

No thank you, I am rather asking for suggestions from people that may be more experienced than me in the topic

Consultants, starting at 150 CHF/hour.

This is what you should have said.

Never invest in something you don’t understand... I you had used Google you’d know the woodland farmers see allowing the public to invest in their crop as an excellent way to finance the 15 - 20 years it takes a forest to mature and that the process is always structured so that they have complete control over the process particularly in deciding when the forest should be harvested, which can have serious consequences for your return on investment.

Perhaps search for a company called Precious Woods.

They're legit, founded some 30 years ago, even had a former president of the Swiss National Bank on their Board. Unfortuntely they're (at least they were in the past) a poor investment like basically all others doing tropical wood.

But at least you can assume you won't be fleeced.

IMHO, the problem with online forums is that it brings out the worse in you.
Take me for instance.. sometime I have nothing better to do than opening posts I don't really care about answering, just to see what people write and commenting on unrelated things: unclear way to express a message, spelling mistakes.. and obviously assuming the author likes to write stuff on forums and chats without bothering google first.Why? it calms me.


In this very case, here's what happened: I got this idea to invest in forests - it doesn't matter where it came from - and I starter looking around. I found plenty of material, especially in French and some in German. I went through few of them but not having anybody around to discuss about the topic, I thought "ehi, why don't I write a post on this english forum, maybe there's people in the same situation like me"..


Now in hindsight, I should have phrased my question better. I was hoping to trigger a discussion but the post was not strong enough and only some useful comments popped up.



I want to apologize to you and the other guy above for having you wasting your time with poor comments. Cheers

No need to apologize.

Admittedly your initial post did sound a bit lazy. Unfortunately we do get a lot of people posting ambiguous questions here, often asking things that Google could have told them faster. So some people on the forum have developed a bit of a reflex of putting down such posts with snarky comments. But you clarified what you meant and IMHO the topic is definitely suitable and interesting. It's a pity not more people have taken it up.

Maybe the problem is that there is nobody here on the forum who has any applicable experience.

I did some research on this topic a while back, and the criticism made me decide not to invest on it.

From what I remember which might not be reliable and specific to the fund I was looking at.

The fund would lock your money depending on some of the cycles the trees have, with the idea that they would plant new trees as new investor's money come-in and harvest the old ones.

There are a few types of trees(I think it was Pine) they use for investment, some take really long to harvest 10 to 20 years and they are more lucrative and others can be harvested earlier but provide less ROI.

The main issues for me were
— Illiquidity of the fund as you cannot get out
— Uncertainty of the return, in 20 years wood might not be that popular
— It is actually high risk investment for the return it was offering
— Better alternatives

I found most of the information using google news on the fund and all the publications it was mentioned. Unfortunately I don't remember the fund name anymore.

I would also be interested in finding out more.

Weren't they in the papers a couple of years ago for defrauding "investors"?

While it sounds nice to invest in woods and forests, it's hard to find a truly legit operation. So I wish you the very best.

In many cases, the money flows to rich people in the west, and poor people in some 3rd world country plant trees for peanuts...using ancient, rusty, leaky, gas-guzzling trucks and not really caring much whether the trees are planted properly or survive.

I don't remember anything to that end but could be, I stopped following them before they delisted from SIX.

The way I do remember it is that one negative event after the other hit them abroad, every 2-3-4 years or so. Most of them nothing the company could have done to prevent but that nonetheless were kind of inherent to their business given that they operate in unstable countries with a warm, and often wet, climate. Like a hurricane hitting a plantation, insecure legal situation (abroad), or the overthrow of a government. So they had to keep raising capital, diluting existing stockholders ever more.

What I did and do like about them is their fair trade approach. But as long as they have to compete with cutthroat capitalist companies (many of them taking "cutthroat" verbally) they're inherently at a disadvantage, it may be simply impossible for them, or others with a similar approach, to operate profitably long-term.

I found it, it was called Sharewood. It's an interesting arictle for anybody who's looking into investing in woods and forests.

Strongly recommend NOT to invest in this sector. At best idealistic and naïve. At worst fraudulent. The examples given above are, well exemplary.

OTOH, many years ago I transferred a potted Christmas tree to the garden. It’s growing nicely. Actually it might turn into a worry. In case you want to chip in towards the end of this year, I promise to regularly send you pix of the newcomer’s progress…

That's no surprise. Sadly.
This reminds me of the penny stock peddlers in the US, see "Wolf of Wallstreet".

IIRC similar schemes used to be common in Germany due to some tax loophole or other that allowed self-employed academics like dentists, docs, lawyers, etc. bypassing the German income tax. Originally used for shipbuilding (donate now, hope to sell the ship at cost 10+ years later, once it's been built). Due to the inherent tax incentive the nominal return was more of a bonus, rather than the main profit source.