USA - GFP puts forests on market

Global Forest Partners LP (GFP) has put up for sale the plantation forests, freehold land and carbon assets held jointly by two of its New Zealand-based timber funds. The estate comprises 15 individual forests with a net productive area of 16,533 hectares (ha), of which 30%, or 5,015 ha, is freehold. The estate’s remaining 11,518 productive hectares are managed under Crown Forestry Licenses (CFLs).

As of 31 March, the net stocked area equaled 16,193 ha of which 88% was planted with radiata pine, 9% Douglas fir, along with a variety of other softwoods and hardwoods. The estate’s age class profile is expected to support a sustainable harvest of about 470,000 m3 per year during the next 15 years, said a GFP spokesman.

“From 2012 none of the harvest volume being sold is encumbered by sales contracts; rather 100% of the harvest output from that date is available for the purchaser of the estate to market as that purchaser sees fit.”
“While it is GFP’s preference that the whole forest estate be sold to one buyer in a single transaction, GFP is prepared to consider bids for individual forests or groups of forests within the estate.”

As one of the oldest and largest timberland investment management organisations, GFP controls a little more than 1.7 million acres of USA timberland. The company currently manages a globally diverse USD3.0 billion portfolio of closed-end commingled timber funds on behalf of institutional and other qualified investors, its website states. Headquartered in Lebanon, New Hampshire, GFP has equity holders and investment managers located in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.