Investment Overview

The United States is one of the largest consumers of tropical hardwoods in the world. We can be your venue to becoming part of the supply end of this supply/demand equation in American as well as global markets.

Kauai Tropical Timbers is currently accepting orders for the 2009 planting. If you would like to own your own exotic hardwood trees, and join our effort to create sustainable hardwood forests, then the purchase information on this page should help you.

Purchase Information

The minimum purchase is 65 trees. Discounts are available on volume purchases. Teak and mahogany are currently being offered at a price of $56.00 per tree. Please contact us for current pricing and species availability information.

After we accept your order and payment, we will send you a tree certificate stating the number and species of tropical hardwood trees you have ordered. You will have title to your trees from the time they are planted in our plantations and recorded in your name in our Tree Registry, until the time they are harvested. The purchase price also includes an overseeing and maintenance program until the date of the final harvest.

Seedlings

We carefully select for you the number of quality seedlings of the species you have ordered employing the same quality standards as we do for our own plantings. We reserve seedlings in the order that paid orders are received. If for any reason we are unable to obtain a sufficent quantity of quality seeds or seedlings for any of the species you have ordered, we will promptly notify you and either return the corresponding portion of your payment, or allow you to choose another species whichever you prefer.

Our planting season will generally fall within the October to January time period each year. Our seedlings require several months for germination and hardening off before planting at which time they are about 8 to 10 inches tall. So the cutoff for accepting orders for the fall planting is about the end of August.

At the proper time for field-planting, we will plant your selected seedlings by hand in our plantations in exactly the same manner as we plant our own, as directed by our foresters, in the locations they determine, at the depths, and at the spacing they direct, and provide the fertilizer and nutrients they choose.

We care for your trees from the time we plant them until the time we harvest them, in the same professional manner as we care for our own trees. Our foresters will inspect your trees periodically, monitoring their growth and directing their care.

Harvests

As your trees grow, we will need to periodically remove some of your trees in thinning harvests to make room for the continued growth of your remaining trees. The first thinning occurs in about the 6th or 7th year. In consultation with our foresters, we will determine the time of the thinning harvests and the final harvest and the number of your trees to be removed in each harvest, taking into consideration such silvicultural factors as the growth profile and size of your trees and the prospects for improved growth of your remaining trees, and such economic factors as the market for your hardwoods to be harvested and the cost and availability of labor. In or before the 21st year after your trees are planted in the field, we will harvest all of your trees which have not been previously harvested.

After each harvest, we will send you a precise accounting for that harvest, showing the number of your trees harvested, the costs incurred in the harvest of your trees and the processing of your logs into marketable hardwoods. The report will also include the amount of our care and management fee, and if you elect to have us sell your hardwoods for you, the proceeds from the sale of your hardwoods, and the amount of your net proceeds from the harvest.

Care and Management Fee

Our care and management fee for overseeing the care of your trees from the time they are planted until the time they are harvested and managing the harvest of your trees and the processing of your logs into lumber is 11% of the wholesale value of your processed lumber, or if you elect to have us sell your hardwoods for you, 11% of your net harvest proceeds, which are the proceeds from the sale of your hardwoods minus your harvest and processing costs.

Selling Your Hardwoods

If you decide to let us sell your hardwoods, we will process your logs into marketable lumber and sell your hardwoods for you. We will mill your logs in the manner we feel is most marketable, use reasonable and good faith efforts to achieve the highest net proceeds for you on the wholesale export/import market, and , after the sale, deduct your harvest and processing costs and our care and management fee, and promptly remit to you your net proceeds from each sale.

Guarantees

The purchase price of each planted tree includes a one-year maturity warranty. KTT will replant or replace at no charge to you, any tree that for any reason is not growing properly and of good form.

If you elect to have us sell your hardwoods for you, we agree to delay deducting our care and management fee from the sale proceeds until we have remitted to you the full amount that you paid us to grow your trees. We simply accrue any unpaid portion of our fee and deduct it from subsequent harvest proceeds.

Further Information

For further information or to purchase trees, please contact us. We will answer any questions you might have, and upon your request mail a purchase packet. If you would like to visit Kauai to inspect our operation and meet one of the owners, we will gladly assist you in arranging a tour.