Kordamentha partner Bryan Webster extended the deadline for expressions of interest in all or part of Gunns Group to the second week of January at the request of potential bidders. Source: The Australian
The bidders were to have sent teams to Tasmania to examine the bankrupt timber company that collapsed in September 2012 with debts of $3.02 billion.
Webster, a registered liquidator, will know by the middle of the month whether the sale of 139- year-old Gunns can be wrapped up quickly with a compelling bid for the whole company, whose assets were valued by PPB Advisory at $795.9 million last February.
If there is no compelling bid for Gunns, the sale process may move towards an indicative bidding process that will whittle potential buyers down to a handful. That will be followed by final bids, perhaps by the end of March, after full due diligence.
The sale of Gunns has attracted a number of long-term timber investors from Asia, North America and Europe. Potential bidders include Hancock Timber Resources Group and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan following a recovery in timber and forestry prices last year.
The S&P Global Timber and Forestry Index rose 17.5% last year.
The sale process of Gunns is complicated by the interests of managed investment schemes in Gunns’ timber assets.
PPB is the administrator of a number of such schemes. There are 48,984 investors in the managed investment schemes otherwise known as growers whose original investments PPB estimates amounted to $1.6bn.
Potential returns to growers is dependent on the continued management of the schemes and harvest on maturity of the plantation timber.
PPB and KordaMentha have agreed that the 50,000ha of timber under Gunns’ managed investment schemes will be sold in two parallel processes: one as part of the sale of the Gunns Group or as a self-contained asset in a sale managed by PPB.
