Plentiful Gold-Class puts estate up for sale

KUALA LUMPUR: Plentiful Gold-Class Bhd, which was recently caught in a saga involving 11,000 members of its oil palm farm-sharing scheme, has put the estate up for sale.

The 4,000ha estate in Gua Musang is for sale via open tender with a reserve price of RM170 million. It has attracted interest from plantation firms, according to people familiar with the matter.

"We will continue to update our growers on the development of the sale and the subsequent repayment arrangements," the company said.

The scheme, known as Country Heights Grower Scheme (CHGS), is Malaysia's first oil palm farm-sharing scheme allowing subscribers to participate in the palm oil industry.

CHGS was unable to meet the 12 per cent promised returns due to low yields, which had led to the move to terminate the scheme.

Plentiful Gold-Class, which is a unit of Bee Garden Holdings Sdn Bhd, will refund the first 10 per cent of the fees to the investors amounting to RM21.5 million today.

This follows the decision made at a meeting with the investors on February 8 to refund the first 10 per cent within a month.

The remaining 90 per cent, which is about RM194 million, is to be paid within six months from the date of approval of the said resolution.

"A total of RM215.5 million will eventually be paid out to the growers, constituting a 100 per cent refund."

According to the company, it had paid a total nett yield of RM78.5 million between 2007 and 2011.

"With the additional RM25 million goodwill payment from Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew and the full refund of the growers' fee, they are set to collectively receive a total of RM319 million as compared to the total funds raised amounting to RM215.5 million when the scheme was first launched in 2007," it added.