Forest owners fell for LJR

Investigative report on the business practices of Lee Thomas Johnston Jr

Since Storm Éowyn, timber prices have been in limbo. Forest owners have been attracted by new companies. Online threads in timber forums have raised concerns about the business practices of ‘LJR Forestry’ in recent weeks. The Celt has been investigating these concerns involving the owner, Lee Thomas Johnston Jr, and has spoken to several forest owners and harvesting companies. Of the five people who spoke out on the record to the Celt, the money they claim to be owed amounts to more than €1 million.

The Celt has followed the path of positive, self-affirming posts on Facebook and a colourful biography on LinkedIn. What seems clear: After an involvement with LJR Forestry, some local forest owners, small businesses and private landowners are currently out of pocket.

“He owes me €67,000 and I don’t know if I will see that money again,” asserts David Nolan from Kilkenny.

Lee Thomas Johnston Jr arrived in Ireland roughly two months after Storm Eowyn in mid-March 2025. On April 7, he was removing trees in Virginia. “Cleanup operations are now in full swing,” he claimed on April 12 in Killeshandra and Cavan. It was not until April 28, however, that he registered ‘LJR Forestry Ltd’, the Irish registry shows.

‘LJR Forestry Ltd’ promised forest owners a “fair and transparent price”. He also engaged with this newspaper – taking out adverts – aimed at small forestry owners. Those adverts were paid for up front. In an interview with the Celt in early June, the owner Lee Thomas Johnston Jr claimed: “We will clear trees off farmers’ lands with our machines, our contractors and our expertise. In the process, we will pay farmers a fair and transparent price, create local jobs, buy parts for our machines, spend in local shops, rent space in ports that were almost empty.”

Backed by an impressive resume, this is what he told several news outlets including the Irish Independent, Agriland and the Irish Farmers Journal. Along the way, he was also commended by Derek McCabe, Chair of the Irish Forest Owners.

It was reported that Mr McCabe had “put a call out” to European companies after Storm Éowyn, and a Finnish company by the name of Fornello answered the call to help Irish forest owners get a fair price for timber. This company would pay for volume, not weight. A significant difference for the woodlot owners in Ireland, where mills generally pay by weight.

Massive amounts of timber were left lying after the storm, more than the mills could process. The longer timber lies, the more moisture evaporates, resulting in weight loss and ultimately profit loss.

Hoping for improved conditions for Irish forest owners, Mr McCabe wrote in LinkedIn: “Our IFO members who are family forest owners are no longer at the mercy of sawmills in this country. There is now healthy competition and transparent pricing...”

In another post Mr McCabe stated: “The IFO are careful not to endorse any one forestry operation over another”, but he took note of the Fornello operation and went on to praise the company Fornello and Lee Thomas Johnston Jr who was working with them.

Fornello Oy is a Finnish roundwood trading company and consultancy. Its CEO is Juhani Koskiranta. Earlier this year, Fornello Oy merged with the Estonian-based company JJK Forest that operates in the wholesale of timber and wood products for the European and Baltic markets.

It is not unusual for international timber companies to follow the path of windthrow to then sell it on to Europe or China as building material, palettes or pulp wood. “We recently were in France and before that all over Germany,” explains Andreas Spannfellner, owner of ‘Spannfellner Holz’ a timber company from Germany, currently harvesting in Cavan. He has six people employed who on a daily basis clear 250 to 300 cubicmetres.

“Initially we were contracted by LJR to harvest, we have stopped doing business with him, because he hasn’t paid.”

According to Spannfellner, Johnston owes him a “mid-six-figure amount”. After a small upfront payment, there has been nothing more. Spannfellner says he is trying to recover his losses by selling the wood himself. “I want to be fair and work at eye-level with the local forest owners.”

The forest owners are in a precarious position, observes David Nolan from Kilkenny: “It wasn’t just about prices, but there wasn’t a huge amount of alternatives, because all the mills here were full up with timber. The weather was good, the timber drying out, and I was happy enough just to find an alternative.”

He had been intrigued by Johnston’s social media presence: “We met on a couple occasions and agreed pricing and then I made a payment structure, and then we started sending timber into the port here down in the south. Long story short, we loaded the boat and it left. I was paid for some of the timber, but not all of it,” he claims.

Johnston had even shown him bank transfers of the payments, but according to Mr Nolan: “Those transfers never reached my account.”

Prior to this, the transaction had not been unusual or raised any concern, says Mr Nolan. He had worked with companies in France before and the process was similar. In order to retrieve his €67k he was owed, he drove up to the Digital Hub in Cavan Town, where Johnston had told him he had an office.

Upon arrival he was informed that Johnston no longer resided in the hub. He had rented a space for the month of June.

‘Pirchmoser Timberwoods’ from Austria arrived in Ireland in March and was contracted by who they assumed was a representative of Fornello – Lee Thomas Johnston Jr – to harvest in Carrick-on-Shannon. While owner Josef Pirchmoser didn’t warm to Johnston, he had known of Fornello, so he thought he was entering a good business deal.

He received an initial payment, which covered the costs of labour, shipment of machinery and fuel. “He still owes me €100,000,” he claims.

Pirchmoser currently has contracts with Coillte and sawmills in Ireland and he is concerned “the foreigners are getting a bad reputation”, which is why he was eager to help clear matters up.

IFO-chairman Derek McCabe did issue a warning early July about “unethical practices” after receiving “reports of operators engaging in unethical practices and failing to pay landowners have risen sharply”.

The Celt reached out to Juhani Koskiranta, CEO of Fornello Oy. He admits having visited Ireland with European customers to inspect the wood quality in March. However, he feels misrepresented by Lee Thomas Johnston Jr. “He was our supplier, we [Fornello/JJK] did not harvest ourselves, we only bought the loaded wood from LJR,” he clarifies.

While he denies having been contacted by anyone about the origin of the wood and potential incomplete purchase of the wood, he regrets getting involved with LJR: “The loads were always late, the agreed volumes were never reached and the quality was bad, we had to reject 25 percent. We lost a lot of money,” he claims.

Neither he nor his business partner Jeff Cohen from JJK Forest will be taking legal action. Mr Koskiranta believes it would “lead to nothing”, and he does not know where Johnston is.

Mr Pirchmoser has handed the matter to a solicitor in Ireland. Mr Nolan also went to the gardaí to file a charge against ‘LJR Forestry’: “I was told it was a civil case and they didn’t do anything.” For now, he feels discouraged to do more.

The Celt has tried to reach Lee Thomas Johnston Jr for a statement. In an email from August 5 he responded: “At this time I have no comment.” The Irish mobile phone number was deleted from his email signature and it was replaced by a number with a Slovakian country code.

When speaking to him last on the phone on July 23 on the day of a scheduled symposium he had advertised online for the Hotel Kilmore, he said he had to cancel the event on short notice and wasn’t able to speak on the phone.