Pacific Lumber Offers To Sell 60,000 Acres Of Forest Land - LA Times

[hatrack]

Pacific Lumber Co., a financially troubled titan of California's timber industry, is offering to sell more than one-quarter of its 220,000 acres of land in Humboldt County, a spokesman said Friday.

The company informed federal securities regulators that it is marketing ranchlands, recreational areas and timberlands that do not figure in its core business as a major redwood lumber producer. Officials said they hope to generate additional cash flow for the company, which has struggled to pay interest on its long-term debt and has threatened bankruptcy for more than a year. "We are not liquidating the company or its timberland," President Robert Manne told employees in a letter. "This is not a massive sell-off ... but rather part of our larger restructuring efforts."

But analysts and critics said the sale of lands owned by Pacific Lumber and its subsidiary, Scotia Pacific Co., is the latest signal that the company needs to be seriously revamped by its parent company, Maxxam Inc. Pacific Lumber, a 140-year-old company with its own mill town and the world's largest privately owned groves of ancient redwoods, was purchased in 1986 by Houston's Maxxam, headed by financier Charles Hurwitz.

EDIT

Mark Lovelace of the Humboldt Watershed Council found out about the sale and publicized it before the company reported it to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. He said the size of the sale indicates that the company is liquidating significant assets. A spokeswoman for the bondholders' trustee declined comment on the sale. Timber companies, developers and conservation groups are potential buyers, depending on the location, resources, price and accessibility

EDIT

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/11/BUGCOH6SVN1.DTL&feed

[phoebe]

1. betting on Georgia Pacific to buy it - they are now owned by Koch

Industries - major funders of right wing "think" (read propaganda) tanks. Bush's sister, Dorothy (Doro) is married to Koch.

connecting the dots...

[Zenlitened]

2. I'd love to see the major enviro groups step forward and buy up...

... what they can.

That's what I love about Massachusetts Audubon -- a big part of what they do is buying up parcels of land.

Granted, it's nothing on the scale of 60,000 acres, but I love the strategy.

Great use of my donor-dollars, IMO.

[phantom power]

3. Sounds like a job for Nature Conservancy.

[XemaSab]

4. There's no blinkin' way

The Redwood Region Audubon Society can BEGIN to buy that land. They're currently trying to fight two nasty environmental battles involving coastal wetlands.

I think their website is www.rras.org

I'm not even sure TNC would be interested, and Redwood National and State Parks probably don't have the money to expand. Save the Redwoods League might be interested in part of it, but they're focused on the old growth, which I doubt PALCO will sell. There are some ranchers that might want a piece of it.

The worst thing that could happen is for the land to be parceled up into little 3 acre parcels. That's the absolute worst. It would be better for the land to stay in timber production.