KK, agree current business looking sick.However, a JV partner...

KK, agree current business looking sick.

However, a JV partner will bring equity as well as debt financing to the project. That will then go into a JV company that will not necessarily be over-geared. Some of the potential JV partners mentioned (APRIL, UPM) would find a billion in their free cash flow!

Agree that $1B is an optimistic asset valuation (mainly land and forests), but it is worth more per hectare than the GTP/TIM fire sale prices.

Lack of announced JV partner doesn't mean the model is sus. Could just as easily be that GNS hasn't liked the deals being offered and has knocked them back so far.

Put yourself in a potential partner's position. You'd go in hard, and then back off until you found GNS's breaking point. Takes time.

Also, cannot also read too much into banks' reticence to invest - Greens campaigned against ANZ (GNS main banker) and that scared them off. Equator Principles and all that. Loss of customers weighed up against financing GNS and GNS lost out. Proved what low life banks really are.

No single insto would be exposed to the total risk. Projects like this are cocktailed up, with no-one insto over-exposed.