Plantation Land Sales Interest Resumes

Posted Sun Jun 30, 2013 PHOTO: John Hewitt says interest in timber plantation land sales is returning (Jack Hewitt) AUDIO: John Hewitt at Harcourts Rural is seeing a revival of interest in plantation land (ABC Rural) MAP: Launceston 7250 The failure of three managed investment schemes with hardwood plantations in Tasmania gutted the market for timbered land in the state. But confidence is starting to return to the sector, as woodchip exports resume. That’s the view of John Hewitt, a director of the rural real estate firm, Harcourts Rural. He says another positive factor is the Macquarie Group’s continued interest in securing plantation assets from Forest Enterprises and Gunns MIS schemes. Macquarie has been looking to take over the plantation assets of Gunns and resolve issues around ownership and liability for the schemes. And John Hewitt says Macquarie is offering landholders with Gunns plantation leases between $20 and $50 per hectare to terminate the forestry rights. “The land owners will get their land back unencumbered and they’ll own the trees,” he said. “It’s up to the land owners to assess what’s in their best interests. “It’s a tangled web as we all understand it “But because there’s a bit more confidence in the industry with some sales going ahead, when we get some clarity about which way the land will be sold, whether it goes to Macquarie or the MIS is carried on and some land owners opt out of it, or some opt in, or they’re all in or all out, it will be clearer. “But either way, there will be some land that becomes unencumbered and land owners will own their trees. “There will be interest in that land. “We’d be interested in putting together a list of those properties so we could market them to the people who are coming to us.” Taylor Scott International