David,
I see that my assertion has support from fawtc.
You say - "Not to put words in planbtotrade's mouth, but I believe his assertion is that it was not done in order to avoid US SEC jurisdictional issues. I doubt that US SEC has jurisdiction over a Costa Rican company selling something in non-US countries. None of the countries you mentioned where TATF used intermediaries were the US."
I would say that you need to check out CAFTA. Costa Rica has recently signed CAFTA and was the last country to do so (perhaps 1-2 yrs ago - Central American Free Trade Agreement). Steve had plenty of warning that it was to be signed. With this signing this is the beginning of a significant reach back jurisdiction capability that the US will have with non-US Central American Countries regarding trade. This is also about the time that many of the things in fawtc's mentions in his posts have dissapeared.
I agree that I cannot prove a causal relationship conclusively, but the timing fits, and you cannot prove that it is not a causal relationship.
Separately,
With respect to your comparisons of F&F and TATF I still do not get the point. The article that I referenced was written in 2006 in hindsight as a case study of the F&F experience and discusses the lessons learned of teak plantations in CR.
Between looking at the article and the website of PanAmerican woods, an established, value added wood products company, you will see that they ship a max of 1 container load per day in 2006.
(the article mentions 1 container load per day in 2006 at the height of the world housing boom, the current production is likely less than that amount but that is speculation on my part due to world events)
In my opinion, this is about the maximum that TATF investors could hope for with respect to Steve's much awaited value added product business. Per the article, PanAmerican ships 30,000m3 per annum or about 12 million bd ft (30,000 X 424). So Pan American woods is roughly the size of an operation that TATF needs to build.
From the TATF website-
"Our objective is to be able to volume process all of the 4 - 6 million board feet of wood per year that the farms will produce from a full thinning and harvest schedule, as well as the approximately 4 million board feet of previously thinned young lumber, cants and logs already in inventory from the prior thinnings."
So TATF has to process about the same volume of wood that PanAmerican wood processed in 2006 to keep up with yearly production. This is not impossible, but will take years, if successful. Per the article, it took Pan American 5 years to build up to this point (each year, TATF falls further behind in care, management, and thinning).
In this case CAFTA may help TATF achieve these goals, but some have posted on this board that they have attempted to purchase lumber from TATF without success. How will TATF manage
the logistics of an enterprise the size of PanAmerican woods?
From the PanAmerican Website-
"We are currently one of the biggest FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) plantation teak wood exporter in the whole American continent, comprising over 6 thousand acres of plantation in the Costa Rican northwestern Guanacaste province."
Just the TATF Sierpe farm alone is almost this size. That means to be successful, roughly speaking, Steve has to eventually be the largest plantation teak wood exporter in the whole American continent, or something close to it. Also, PanAmerican has the advantage of being built on one large teak plantation while TATF teak farms are spread out. If you have been to CR, you realize that just getting the logs from the field (or milled cants, or milled boards) to the processing center will be a challenge.
I do acknowledge that the numbers do not add up in the comparison. Pan American woods only has 6000 acres of plantation, yet seems to ship a lot of wood annually. While TATF has more land, but predicts a lower amount of lumber to be harvested on an annual basis. It is possible that Pan American processes wood from other plantations and that much of TATF's land is not converted to plantations, but primary or secondary rainforest. In any case, it is one of the few comparisons that is available. Also, TATF has never stated that their product is flooring, it could be something else, but it is a or the logical choice.
Despite doing my best to find some retail sales pricing for PanAmerican Teak Flooring products, I could not find any on the web. If anyone can find this please post it. I did find teak flooring for 3-10 dollars/bd ft.
planb
