Pete, I've got to take issue with one thing in your post
Frank Wilson bought $14.19m of trees, was paid back $922.35k in commissions and in September 2018 can exercise a put option to be paid $15.8m for these trees, giving a gain of $2,532,350 over 4 years, or 19% (note this is before his finance costs).
He bought 215ha, then got the put option for 175ha. So on those hectares, he's actually guaranteed a 46% return. It's almost as if the only way QIN could sell plantations that year was to guarantee the returns - it was debt funding by stealth. No wonder the insto wants to exercise!