I agree that the deal must be complicated. It isn't clear to me what has actually been sold. IMHO GNS ASX release leaves a lot to be desired in terms of disclosure to the market and, in particular, shareholders. There is plenty of ambiguity in what a "plantation estate" actually is these days. Land and timber ownership is more and more frequently separated these days by the use of legal instruments "forestry rights". These days an "estate" can be both the trees alone or trees and the land they are growing on.
Due to a transaction a few years ago GMO already own a fair chunk of the Auspine GT trees anyway. Therefore GNS (Auspine) don't have a lot of trees left to sell. My understanding was that it was only the trees in very young plantations and those re-plantings since the GMO sale that belong to GNS. I think Auspine held around 45k ha of land (that might be planted hectares, not gross). Some of that may never have been held by Auspine (joint ventures etc).
TIMOs typically invest in trees, not land. If GNS have sold the balance of the trees then $107m is a very good price. Too good to be true IMHO.
My guess is that it's been essentially a land only sale, say 30K ha at about $3K per ha. The only way I can reconcile the mixture of signals (TIMO, land versus trees, "estate", past sales etc) is to assume the TIMO buyer is, in fact, GMO. They may be tidying up loose ends. Still, its odd for a TIMO to be buying land.
I must confess that, in the absence of better disclosure by GNS, this pondering doesn't count for much.
Be interested in your take.
GNS Price at posting:
27.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Not Held
