[Resolved]  STM Teak Units — Unacceptable Compromise plan

STM introduced Teak Equities instrument in 1992 and since then till 1998 have been selling Certificates that could hold one or many trees. The face value of each tree starts from Rs.1475 and varies depending on the plans like STM1, STM2.. STM6.
According to the plan, the Teak trees would be planted and maintained by Sterling Tree Magnum ltd and at the end of 23 yrs ie 2015, the trees would be sold, and timber measuring about 1.02 cu m would be given to the Equity holders.

Following this, there were many companies which followed suit and started agglomerating money from the general public with the proposal of similar looking schemes. In 1999, the SEBI taking note of this, freezed all companies including STM and suspended their operations until further notice.

Last week, I received a letter from STM mentioning about an order from the High Court of Madras about the Compromise and Agreements proposal from STM to the investors. The investors were given 2 options.

1. Disinvestment - In this case, the face value of the instrument would be returned to the investor starting from the 9th month from the date of the High Court Judgment order and would be completed before the 60th month.

2.Continuing Investment - In this case, STM continues to maintain the trees and since the almost 10 years were lost due to non maintenance, the period of maturity would be extended by another 10-15 yrs[protected] and then, 0.80 cu m (instead of promised 1.02 cu m) of commercial timber would be given.

I just want to understand whether the company has any interest on the investors. Considering inflation and the rate of the interest being provided by even banks, returning the face value and that too after 60 months, is anything other than nonsense. After having waited for almost 16 yrs, and adding another 5 yrs when we fully get the money back, if I had invested Rs.7500 (for 5 trees) in a bank with a interest rate of 10 % it would have become Rs.34500 and with the intermediate bullish market during the 90s and the 2007s, I would have easily clocked more than 3 lakhs.

Needless to say, the second option dont even guarantee the existence of the company at 2035.

Request the administrators of the website to spread this grave injustice by the erring entities to the innocent investors across the world.