gns history and what went wrong

Looking back through the history of GNS and trying to assess what has gone wrong. And also trying to leave aside any political comment. I see the main 3 factors as the following;

1) Acquisition of Auspine for $350m at top of the market without issuing many new GNS shares to pay for it when GNS price was high. Then issuing those GNS shares much later at a much lower GNS price when they became cashflow constrained.

2) Relying on the Japanese market almost 100% for woodchip exports and hence having a cost structure which is high and not able to supply to China which is where all the growth is. So when $A rose due to China factor but Japan went in the crapper due to GFC, GNS was not able to benefit. Infact it got crushed. (this is the main factor I think)

3) Pursuing a pulp mill project which has tied up $200m of badly needed capital which would have been used to get them through the downcycle.

Interestingly the MIS factor is not a huge factor to the problems facing GNS today. Over the years GNS have pocketed vast profits from MIS which is now in their book value. Even if this is significantly reduced GNS is still way ahead on MIS business. The relatively small ongoing cash outflows to manage the MIS business from now until harvest are more than covered by the loan repayments they will receive as the MIS business winds down its book.

Lord