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“How do timberland investment managers make money?” The question itself, asked by an analyst working for an institutional investor, was straightforward enough. However, it was the third time in the past week our team had received a call with such more…
Recent comments by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Sheila Blair regarding minimum down-payments of up to 20% for “qualified residential mortgages” (QRM) echoed discussions about residential housing markets at the UGA Timberland Investment Conference. Our Equity Research Team (Neena more…
From the desk of Dr. Tim Sydor, Forest Economist: The 2011 Timberland Investment Conference, hosted last week by the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Center for Forest Business at Lake Oconee, attracted over 350 participants from all aspects of the timberland more…
Our team at Forisk just released its 2011 timber (stumpage) forecast for pine sawtimber and pulpwood for the US South and by state. Overall, we show increasing demand for wood raw materials and higher pine stumpage prices for forest owners more…
An interesting report landed on our desk a few weeks ago, further reinforcing the sorry state of timberland market analysis available to timber REIT investors. The report, from Credit Suisse, makes assertions based on a careless and faulty application of more…
Last week, I spoke at the Global Real Assets Investment Forum in New York as part of the panel on “Timber in Institutional Portfolios.” My takeaway from participating in this event: institutional investors seem bored with timberlands. They showed more more…
Forisk Equity Research completed a comparative analysis of timber REIT forest harvesting activities to address the question, “who wins as housing markets return?” The Executive Summary is below. The complete Technical Note (January 2011) is available here. Executive Summary While more…
As a researcher, I enjoy exploring and testing questions related to forest economics, wood bioenergy and timber investments. Why? The finance of forestry brings together a globally available, renewable asset with attractive investment characteristics that continues to generate interesting issues more…
Land consultant and writer Curtis Seltzer interviewed me on the topic of timberland investing and financial analysis. One question in particular got to the heart of how I think about applying finance to forestry-related investment decisions: “Do you use or more…
Several years ago, an analyst from a hedge fund called me to discuss suitable discount rates for timberland investments. We had the following exchange: “A common error with discount rates is that folks use real and nominal rates inconsistently,” I more…