Tag Archives: press-releases
Dubai Ready to Launch $500 Million Property Fund
Dubai Ready to Launch $500 Million Property Fund By WPC Staff | May 9, 2013 11:34 AM ET A $500 million investment fund targeting distressed and stalled properties in Dubai should be operational by the end of the year, according to the fund’s chief executive. Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), one of Dubai’s sovereign wealth funds, and Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management originally announced the formation of a $1 billion fund in 2011. The fund, described as the first of its kind to focus on Dubai, was promoted as a way to inject new liquidity into the market. Now fund chief executive Douglas Kirkman says the fund should be ready to launch by summer and capitalized with $500 million by the end of the year. “Right now we are dealing with the license at the DIFC [Dubai International Financial Centre]… If you mean launch as in active marketing and legally able to do it, we will hit that point right before Ramadan,” Mr. Kirkman told Arabian Business . “At that point we can formally launch and market [the fund].” The fund has capital available and hopes to finish raising funds by the year, with $500 million the new target. ICD and Brookfield have each committed $100 million to the fund. Brookfields says it will move employees to Dubai to run the fund. Dubai’s residential property market has been showing signs of recovery in recent months, but the office market is still struggling, particularly “strata” buildings with multiple owners. “We are a believer in the Gulf and a believer in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region,” Mr. Kirkman told Arabian Business. “As a launch pad into the rest of that area we believe this was an excellent starting point.” Continue reading
Rentech Drops Woody Jet Fuel For Wood Pellets
By: Northern Ontario Business staff The California energy company which once touted made-in-Northern Ontario green jet fuel now wants to make wood pellets. Los Angeles-based Rentech has drastically changed the scope of its project in Northern Ontario as it announced, May 2, it is switching gears by acquiring a shuttered Weyerhaeser fibre board mill in Wawa and and the Atikokan Renewable Fuels mill in Atikokan . Plans to convert a former Domtar mill in White River into a fuel refinery have been dropped. To make this happen, Rentech had to acquire a deep-pocketed partner in Georgia-based Fulghum Fibre, a leader in wood chip processing services. The Atikokan mill, owned by Ed Fukushima and Larry Levchak of Thunder Bay , is undergoing a conversion to make wood pellets to feed the nearby Ontario Power Generation power station. The Wawa mill will be converted to a wood pellet operation. In addition, Rentech has struck a long-term contract with Canadian National Railway to ship pellets from Wawa to the Port of Quebec, presumably for international customers. The company is hinting of employment opportunities for First Nations. Rentech had been signaling for more than a year that jet fuel was no longer in its plans. In 2011, amid much government fanfare, the province committed 1.1 million cubic metres of wood to Rentech and its local partners to set up a wood-to-aviation fuel refinery in White River to make low-carbon jet fuel. Almost 400 direct and indirect jobs were to be created. The so-called Olympiad Project was part ofthe province’s wood supply competition to put Ontario “wood back to work” in the larger overhaul of the Crown wood tenure system. Rentech president Hunt Ramsbottom said in 2011 that he expected to have an order book of air carrier clients by the time the plant went into operation in 2015. But later that same year, Rentech began retrenching on its plans and said it was looking for a deep-pocketed dance partner for the White River plant. Rentech said it was searching for partners and funding sources in a “financing package that would limit Rentech’s investment in the project.” Last February, Rentech decided to close an R & D plant in Colorado where it planned to find a profitable way to convert biomass into jet fuel. The company plans to “re-position” itself to take advantage of the a strong business fundamentals of the nitrogen market. Rentech is cutting all its spending on research and development activities from $21 million in 2012 to $10 million in 2013. Click here to find more articles on Rentech. Continue reading
Demand for incense pushes up prices for Agarwood
The surging demand for incense has seen the price of Agarwood, its main ingredient, hit an all time high. Farmers near Hong Kong are being encouraged to plant more trees, but so far, only a few seem to be in it for the long haul. Across Asia, people prefer the natural scent of incense than more modern items like air fresheners or sprays. Seen burning in temples all across the continent, the unique aroma is created when a fungus infects aqularia trees, resulting in a darkening of the wood, which is called agarwood. Joey Yuen runs an incense store in Hong Kong. Her supplies were harvested a number of decades ago. “As agarwood became popular, a lot of people in China’s mainland would come over and log the trees and sell them. ” Agarwood is measured using the traditional Chinese unit of weight, the catty, which equals 600 grams. A pack of incense sticks can range anywhere from US$260 to even US$10000 per catty. But there’s a reason behind the high prices. “Only about 10% of the trees can have this fungal invasion, therefore development of the highly priced agarwood. So with such a surge in demand while the supply is declining all the time, it is natural to see the price going up and up all the time. That is why you now have a lot of people investing into incense tree farms because they see an opportunity for making a quick profit,” said Prof. Chi Yung Jim, University of Hong Kong. Chan Koon Wing has been growing and harvesting incense trees with his grandfather since childhood. Four years ago, Chan opened an incense tree farm, home to nearly 10,000 incense trees. But harvesting the cash crop is a slow process. “It’s like planting a normal tree, after eight years, you have to hurt the tree to force it to produce oil. Then you have to wait another five years for the oil to reach a high quality. Only then can it be harvested.” Despite the growth in tree farms, they are unlikely to satisfy the growing demand for agarwood. With natural supplies diminishing and farmed products requiring many years before they can hit the market, demand will continue to outstrip supply. Continue reading
