What are the revenue results by log category?

BEN QUIN
John,
Thank you once again for the time you have taken to complete this analysis. You raise the question of the missing “results by segment” information towards the end of your article.

As a shareholder in this enterprise, I would be most interested to know the revenue results by log category – softwood, category 1 hardwood (prime sawlogs), category 2 hardwood, category 8 hardwood, pulp logs, speciality timbers.

Further transparency in the report could be provided through an analysis of harvesting costs and cost of sales by category. Where does the risk lie? Is it with the public? The forest contractors? The customer? If so, why?

A review of these actual results, and detailed analysis of the information, could do much to either dispel or confirm the public suspicion that FT is a wood-chip driven enterprise. The public would then be in a position to make more informed decisions about the policy parameters within which FT should operate.

As it stands, it does seem that we urgently need to find a way to improve the return to the public from the public forest resource. Given Gunns’ recent announcements that:
a. they want the mill to be 100% plantation based, hence their bid for more plantation assets, and
b. their flat profit result last year was due to depressed demand for wood chips in Japan, the argument that the FT-Gunns’ wood-supply agreement will improve the FT bottom-line appears increasingly spurious. If that is true, I would be most interested in hearing more about the revised FT strategy for FY09-10 and beyond.

Ben Quin

This comment appears at the end of this article, HERE. comment HERE