Big names vie for CHH trees

The identities of the short-listed bidders for hundreds of millions of dollars of trees being sold by New Zealand's biggest forest-owner, Carter Holt Harvey, are leaking out.

One bidder is Hancock Timber Resource Group, of Boston, Massachusetts - described as the world's biggest manager of timberland investments for institutional investors.

Last year, Hancock bought part of the forest estate of Tenon - the company formerly called Fletcher Challenge Forests - in its first New Zealand investment after nearly 10 years of looking.

Another is DB Capital Partners, which is the private equity arm of Deutsche Asset Management in Australia and manages about A$2 billion ($2.1 billion) of investments.

DB Capital is also a co-investor with rival bidder Hancock in Australia's largest private timber plantation company, the Melbourne-based Hancock Victorian Plantations.

Asked about DB Capital's involvement in the CHH sales process, managing director David Shields, in Sydney, said: "We are under confidentiality obligations there, so we can't talk about the process."

Investment bankers suspect a third bidder is an investment vehicle linked to Australia's Macquarie Bank. They also believe the group of bidders through to due diligence - possibly three or four contenders - is light on the so-called "TIMOs", timber investment management organisations such as Hancock that buy and manage forests for rich individuals and institutions.

TIMOs have become big players in New Zealand as corporate owners sell out of trees.

The book value of the cutting rights for about 95,000ha of CHH trees is $400 million.

The trees are about one-third of the company's forest estate by area - but less by value.

One report circulating in finance industry circles is that indicative bids were between $420 million and $440 million.

CHH is also separately selling 30,000ha of freehold land, which could be worth about $75 million.

The trees for sale are "non-strategic", those not required for the supply of present or planned processing facilities.

The company is jettisoning all of its Canterbury and Hawkes Bay trees, as well as parts of the estate in Auckland, Coromandel and the Bay of Plenty. One exception - where the trees go despite the company owning a processing plant in the region - is Canterbury, where CHH has a medium-density fibreboard (MDF) plant.

Neither Kinleith, which generates the highest cashflows, nor forests in Northland and Nelson are for sale.

CHH says it expects to update the market on the sales process in July.