GPG forest bid 'for long haul'

Guinness Peat Group wants to put together a world-class forestry area properly financed largely from New Zealand capital, chairman Sir Ron Brierley says.

"It's a challenge. That's why GPG is there at the present time," he said yesterday, denying the company was bidding for control of Rubicon, a 17.6 per cent shareholder in Fletcher Forests, for a quick profit.

"If you're in something to get out quickly, forestry would be about the last thing you would select because if anything is a long-term proposition, it has to be forestry and therefore it has to be financed accordingly."

"Conventional equity" was not a good structure for forest ownership.

GPG's bid for control of Rubicon was a "means to an end to give GPG status to implement something in respect to forestry".

"There's certainly a plan but it's obviously somewhat unformulated necessarily because we don't have the official status at present to be able to move forward to implement it."

He said the company had "a conceptual model" that needed the participation and agreement of a number of parties.

The plan was not going to emerge "magically overnight".

"At this stage you could say in a technical sense we're not even at the starting point because we don't have sufficient control of Rubicon to get things moving."