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While publicly-traded timberland-owning REITs, and REITs generally, outperformed the S&P 500 over 10-year, 3-year and 1-year benchmarks (see table), the sector took a shellacking during the third quarter of 2011. The Wall Street Journal profiled the “dethroning” of REITs as more…
The 1970 movie “Sometimes a Great Notion”, based on the novel by Ken Kesey, centers on an independent logger in Wakonda, Oregon, and a battle between the local logging union and a lumber conglomerate. The patriarch of the logging family, more…
Last Friday (September 16, 2011), Rayonier (RYN) announced its intent to acquire 250,000 acres of timberlands in the US South for $330 million. Expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, the deal would bring Rayonier’s timberland ownership more…
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…