devil is in the detail

Having read Blacktree's announcement they are desperately trying to sweet talk investors, as all the offers are. If there's one thing anyone can tell it's when they're talking to us they're trying to make money for themselves. Never forget that.

There's one particularly disturbing phrase in the announcement:

"The pooled structure allows the projects to become self financing through the use of a portion of the earlier project harvest proceeds to pay later project maintenance costs. This will reduce the cost of, and reliance on, external finance and will increase the amount of overall
cash available to be distributed to growers”.

So, this implies that maintaining the projects will be paid for by investors, since ultimately all value stems from the trees. The after all the other associated costs of harvest etc Blacktree take their 5%.

My concern is what is this new cost, in dollar or %. Right now it's indefined... a blank cheque. These 'costs' could eat up 80% of revenue, depending on how its enacted. Use companies that overcharge, who could even be Blacktree subsidiaries or have the same directors, and value is funnelled away nice and legal.

As for a pooled structure, GTP dumped all their projects into one bucket when it came to finances and we've been waiting months for auditors to sort the mess. Why vote for the same mess? Pooled structures are just a lazy and cheap way to administer, it only benefits Blacktree. As for reducing costs, GTP claimed project transform would enable them to reduce costs, but they had complete control anyway so this argument is all smoke and mirrors.

PPPL and Gunns offer a predefined %, and I'd rather continue with this knowing what the costs will be, not Blacktree's blank cheque on maintenance. If they announce a figure it will be worth reading but until then they are acting just like GTP.