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If you invest, isn’t all income “good”? Not according to the IRS when it comes to real estate investment trusts (REITs). Generally, 95% of a REIT’s gross income must be derived from rents from real property, aka “good income.” For more…
Last week, Fitch Ratings raised its outlook on Weyerhaeuser (WY) from “negative” to “stable” and affirmed its rating at “BB+”. Fitch justified the action primarily on WY’s Pulp business and core Timberland operations, though the rating agency recognized that the more…
On July 25, 2011, Rayonier (RYN) announced that its board of directors approved a three-for-two stock split. On August 24, 2011, the company issued one-half additional share for each share held to shareholders of record as of August 10, 2011. more…
A duck walked into the doctor’s office and asked, “Doc, how do you treat timber REIT dividends?”…. Distributions from real estate investment trusts (REITs) have three elements: Distributions representing firm Operating Income are taxed at investors’ ordinary (marginal) tax rates. more…
In November 2010, we posted an introduction to the two available timber-related ETFs (exchange traded funds): Guggenheim Timber Index ETF (CUT, launched in November 2007) and iShares S&P Global Timber and Forestry Index (WOOD, launched in June 2008): CUT tracks more…
The four publicly-traded timber REITs in the US – Potlatch (PCH), Plum Creek (PCL), Rayonier (RYN) and Weyerhaeuser (WY) – own timberland in 24 of the 50 states. Where do these assets sit relative to evolving wood bioenergy markets more…
Risk management is back in vogue. S&P’s downgrading of US sovereign debt last Friday to AA+ from AAA sparked sell-offs across world markets. Yesterday (Monday August 8, 2011) scored Wall Street its worst day in over two-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, how more…
It’s December 31, 2010 and you’re sitting on a pile of cash. Do you invest in the S&P 500, an all-REIT index, private timberlands or publicly-traded timber REITs? Based on the performance of key indices, putting your chips in with more…
Last week, we posted how Plum Creek (PCL) and Potlatch (PCH) offset weak log markets in 2Q 2011 with land sales. The balance of the public timber REITs, Rayonier (RYN) and Weyerhaeuser (WY), have also reported their results and, as more…
Second quarter 2011 results reported by Plum Creek (PCL) and Potlatch (PCH) the past two days indicated continued weakness in those segments affected by housing markets (timber harvesting and wood products manufacturing). Both firms somewhat offset lower timber harvesting cash more…