The Queen's private estate, the Duchy of Lancaster, said it did not know it held stakes in the chain until questions came from journalists. Documents show Prince Charles's private estate purchased 50 shares in early 2007 in the Bermuda-based Sustainable Forestry Management Ltd., a now-defunct company that specialized in carbon offsetting. The BBC reported that the prince gave three major speeches which touch on the subject in the seven months after his private estate acquired the stakes. He and Prince Charles had been friends since they attended university in the 1960s, and the van Cutsem family has been a fixture in Prince Charles's life ever since. The Duchy of Cornwall was set up 680 years ago to provide a private income to the heir to the throne.

Source: CBC News November 07, 2017 20:52 UTC