AgAmerica Lending, a Lakeland-based agricultural lender, has sued the operator of a Michigan retirement fund over a failed investment in a large Kona coffee venture, alleging the fund and its partners misled the lender about the project’s condition and prospects.
Filed in Polk County Circuit Court on Dec. 1, the complaint by Lakeland, Florida-based AgAmerica Lending LLC targets the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System of Michigan (MERS) and other defendants connected to the Kona Hills Coffee project on Hawaii Island.
The suit alleges the defendants concealed pre-existing environmental, legal, and construction issues while obtaining two AgAmerica loans totaling $40 million. The second loan was based on “positive updates” from the project partners, according to the suit.
“However, in January 2025, AgAmerica was surprised to learn that there were serious problems with the harvest and that tens of millions of dollars of additional capital would be required to make the Kona Hills project successful,” the suit states.
According to the lawsuit, the project’s asset-management company then ceased financial support, the loans went into default, and the property was foreclosed.
In a statement to Daily Coffee News, MERS CEO Kerrie Vanden Bosch described the lawsuit’s formal complaints as “baseless and without merit.”
MERS is a nonprofit that administers retirement plans for government employees on behalf of approximately 1,000 municipalities throughout the state. The organization was a principal investor in the Kona Hills project.
“MERS invested less than 0.5% of the total portfolio in Kona Hills as part of our private market allocation,” Vanden Bosch said. “While this specific investment experienced a loss, it was more than offset by strong gains in other private market investments.”
Previous public project descriptions of Kona Hills have described it as Kona’s largest coffee farm, backed by institutional investors and led by a group of experienced Kona coffee producers. The farm was established in 2016 by combining the Hokukano Ranch and Lower Kealakekua Heritage Reserve properties, totaling approximately 1,900 acres of agricultural land.
According to the lawsuit, MERS held a 99.5% stake in Kona Capital Partners LLC, which in turn owned 97% of Kona Hills LLC. The Kona Hills website and web store remain online.