Geoffrey Cousins can ‘bounce the stock’. He will be there very shortly with The Wilderness Society.
Posted by Karl Stevens on 01/02/11 at 01:35 PM
48.5 and falling.
Posted by Russell Langfield on 01/02/11 at 02:06 PM
Maybe the market has finally cottoned on to these facts:
1) Gunns has withdrawn from FSC Assessment for Controlled Wood sources due to its own inability to meet a number of Corrective Action Requests from the certifier;
2) Gunns Needs a Joint Venture Partner to finance the mill; and,
3) All propsective JVPs have made it clear that they require the proposed mill to be FSC certified, which means the feedstock must be FSC certified, which Gunns cannot do due to its own decision to pull out of the controlled wood certification process, which means no mill.
Easy as 1,2,3 - although the market does seem to have taken an awfully long time to connect these very basic dots.
Posted by teapot on 01/02/11 at 02:39 PM
I put the following question to Business Spectator yesterday, having noticed the share price wasn’t all that good…
I’m sure I had a nice bit in there about the pulp mill and quicksand - maybe it didn’t make the cut:
.....................
“What’s Gunns’ logic?
TOPIC : Gunns pulp mill
Why does Gunns still [...] hang on to its pulp mill, while divesting itself of vineyards, bush, hardware stores and mills? (See Gunns to close WA sawmill in February, January 31.)
They are sacking more than it seems would ever get a job in the proposed mill in the Tamar – they even sacked the bloke in charge of the project – but the project is dragging them down.
Down here in Tasmania, many are still against it and are promising continual opposition, into the future. But still there is no Liberal or Labor politician with the guts to oppose it. John Gay is gone, Paul Lennon and David Bartlett are gone, and now there is Giddings.
Garry Stannus
31 Jan 2011 9:24 PM”
...................
The power of the pen? (Grin)
Posted by Garry Stannus on 01/02/11 at 03:00 PM
And what’s the word for it when you sell off your shares and then buy them back?
..................
Merrill Lynch buys 12.5m Gunns shares
31 Jan 2011 11:55 AM
When the Federal Government abolished tariffs in favour of free trade, that was the death knell for Australian industries. It is now cheaper to buy dressed timber from Chile than it is to buy from Gunns. What hope has the timber industry?
South America, Indonesia and China are all building bigger pulp mills than Gunns and will undersell any thing we can produce in Australia. Gunns if they were making pulp would have to compete on the world market and the future is looking very bleak for all Australian forest products. This is not about conservation groups or the Greens this is all about the Liberal and Labour push for free trade. Gunns and all manufacturing industries are being sacrificed on the alter of free trade.
Posted by max on 01/02/11 at 03:59 PM
Gunns in a trading halt ...
Posted by Trader on 01/02/11 at 04:01 PM
ABC radio’s been running the story this arvo.
1 February 2011
Gunns Finalises Bell Bay Sawmill Acquisition
Forest products company Gunns Limited has finalised the $48 million acquisition of the former FEA Bell Bay softwood sawmill near Launceston.
Please refer to link below for the full announcement:
Gunns stated at their AGM that they would announce a venture partner by the end of January. It is now February 1st…......!!
Posted by Barnaby Drake on 01/02/11 at 04:36 PM
01/02/2011 Gunns finalises Bell Bay sawmill acquisition 1 PDF http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20110201/pdf/41wjvk4yzpw6xn.pdf
In future we shall watch this mill’s managers searching for high quality, pruned, mature and optimum sized sawlogs, at a reasonable transport distance to the mill.
Possibly need to import logs from elsewhere and then export sawn wood again either to mainland states if not overseas…
No matter who would own the operations, the price for diesel,(transport costs)will more likely than not go up sharply be that in the short, medium and long term.
Consequently, quality matters before quantity.
Posted by Frank on 01/02/11 at 04:47 PM
Re #8
I bet the employees there are absolutely scatting bricks.
Posted by Russell Langfield on 01/02/11 at 05:09 PM
Ah the show does roll on, but the finale is a ways off says me.
A special price for a special company….40 million shares traded and finished at fiddy centimes….
Laughing????....who me????....I’m just glad I never bought in at $4.60 when they first mentioned the two fatal words….“pulp mill”....
Pass me a tissue please hun…..eyes full of tears ha ha ha ha…......
Posted by Dave Groves on 01/02/11 at 05:21 PM
The persistence of a Gunns share price above $0.0 despite the factors listed by teapot at #3 owes a great deal to the Wood Supply Agreement, a lavish governmental gift that is unaccountably not dependent on the pulp mill, and a government so bent that it has floated the possibility of making the public guarantor of a mill which no bank in the world has shown a willingness to otherwise touch.
We can only hope that there will be some domino effect from Tunisia, and maybe Egypt.
John Hayward
Posted by john hayward on 01/02/11 at 05:36 PM
In the largest sell-off since June 2010, someone dumped 39.5 million shares at 0.495 cents. A sale of this size and price will make the market very jittery and will most probably be followed by more sell-offs, possibly a complete crash.
The day of reckoning may be at hand for Gunns, and as it is said, ‘you can fool most of the people some of the time’. The rats are leaving the ship. I don’t think even Lara’s lifeboat will save them now!
Posted by Barnaby Drake on 01/02/11 at 07:07 PM
It would seem that Gunns is headed for the scrap heap. I guess that after the diversive policies they have been pushing most of us “greenies” would be cheering. What a shame that this great Tasmanian company went astray.
Think of the possibilities if it had embraced real Tasmanian values, developed its vineyards. expanded its hardware holdings and developed a sustainable policy with native forest logging.
We are all losing and we can blame only one person.
Hadenuff
Posted by hadenuff on 01/02/11 at 07:12 PM
Just a hunch but maybe reality has struck and the auditors have finally determined that the mill is dead in the water.
$200million half year loss and the charade is over!
Ah well just dreaming.
Hadenuff
Posted by hadenuff on 01/02/11 at 08:20 PM
Maybe the share price fall is because people are starting to realise that the pulp mill is not going to be built. What kind of firm sacks all its experts on a project if it intends to build it?
Posted by Rod on 01/02/11 at 08:43 PM
End of the forest mining era in WA ...
What is left? Memories and worn out remnants of “the good old days”
Sustainable, best practice forest management? - Not a word!
End of an era as sawmill closes
Paige Taylor
From: The Australian
February 02, 2011 12:00AM
Head rig operator Eddie Peach at the Gunns Deanmill plant in Manjimup, which is being shut down.
EDDIE Peach was 20 when he left Perth for the historic logging town of Manjimup and the promise of work.
He and his wife Irene raised three children on his wage at Deanmill, a busy sawmill on the edge of the state jarrah forest, surrounded by wooden workers’ cottages and its own primary school.
But the Peaches watched the industry shrink as public sentiment turned against old-growth logging.
Deanmill Primary School shut due to lack of students in 1998, and the industry’s logging quota was halved after the state Labor government came to power in 2001. At barbecues and family gatherings, Mr Peach, 45, found himself defending his job cutting up to 300 tonnes of jarrah a day.
“The ones who say it’s not sustainable usually live in the city,” he said. “Everyone’s had a few drinks when the subject comes up, so it can get a bit heated.”
Mr Peach is among the mill’s remaining 44 workers made redundant by Gunns this week. Deanmill, which now processes about 200 tonnes of jarrah a day, will close on February 18.
“It feels like the end of an era,” he said.
Manjimup, 300km south of Perth, is also bracing for the closure of the processing centre the mill supplies, putting another 56 people out of work.
Jeremy Hubble, chief executive of Manjimup Shire, population 6000, said agriculture had been the region’s main economy for decades, but the mill’s closure would still have a huge impact.
“We’re not just talking about 100 jobs—it’s the businesses around the mill and the processing centre that will suffer.”
Gunns said the state government’s restructuring of the timber industry in 2004 had resulted in a lower grade of log being received, and a significant rise in costs.
The company’s chief executive, Greg L’Estrange, said the volume and price of imported timber products coming into the local market had badly affected the business.
“Gunns has a long and proud history in the West Australian hardwood industry, and we’ve made every effort to continue,” Mr L’Estrange said in a statement to the media yesterday.
“However, at this point there are no viable alternatives to the closure of Deanmill. We have held talks with several possible buyers, but have been unable to reach any agreement.”
Posted by Frank on 02/02/11 at 07:14 AM
#15 yes Gunns could have been a great company, but it really needed some new blood on its board 10-15 years ago, some-one probably not from tassie with fresh ideas and a different way of looking at forestry and tassie, instead the various boards have been more about powerplays and politics. It picked one side to represent in the early forest wars and has chose not to vary its approach.
Posted by Mrs Smyth on 02/02/11 at 07:51 AM
Maybe shareholders have heard Piilonen’s unfavourable assessment of Gunns’ knowledge of pulp mills!
Like a child, Gay grabbed the great big lolly that Lennon gave him, and ran with it.
Posted by salamander on 02/02/11 at 07:54 AM
Oh dear, how sad, I have seen the place, not much in the way of an inviting forested area to visit.
Another State that will be much happier when they are rid of Gunns Ltd.
Which reminds me, the American based forestry pillaging outfit, by the name of Hancock’s, is still able to go flat knacker into Victoria’s highland Forests.
Yes, even Victoria, another State that has forsaken its proud forests for the ultimate benefit of only a small few political rodentae!!
Did someone say say something about Hancock’s profits?
Why these are shipped across to the mighty US of A.
Obviously they are still in the business of treating Australia as a laughable third world country.
Posted by William Boeder on 02/02/11 at 08:37 AM
Thanks Frank (#18) for posting that Australian article. Also, I had been much taken by what Max had said in (#6) about the abolition of tariffs and the pursuit of ‘‘free trade’ sounding the death knell for Australian industry. (Keating’s ‘level playing field’)
Now in Frank’s #18 I read:
“The company’s chief executive, Greg L’Estrange, said the volume and price of imported timber products coming into the local market had badly affected the business.”
I think Max was correct. You know for me the big irony has always been that it was Labor that introduced the sell-off of our public utilities and the abloition of tariffs.
Posted by Garry Stannus on 02/02/11 at 08:43 AM
GUNNS PULP MILL: GAME OVER
I would love to think the same could be said for the Labor and Liberal parties responsible for plundering the public purse to promote this cretinous project, pander to the interests of this company at the expense of essential services like health and aged care, pervert parliament and the legal system to force this hideous still birth on the people of Tasmania and prop up this failure so long after it was obvious to anyone with a vague grasp of economics that the pulp mill was a dud.
Posted by Bob McMahon on 02/02/11 at 08:49 AM
I eagerly await comments from mjf, crf or any other Gunns-friendly acronyms on this thread.
Posted by Justa Bloke on 02/02/11 at 01:09 PM
Frank #18. Who does Greg LÉstrange think would want to buy a shutdown no longer viable timber mill that cannot source any reasonable supply of timber, nor competitively sell the end product?
I suggest he approaches the Blind Institute over there in Western Australia, try and off-sell this bucket of prawns to one of its sight-handicapped residents?
Any sort of spin would be listened to, even if this included a garbled verbal re-assurance that there are mountains of timber stored around the corner just a little bit down the road?
This form of customer mesmerising foreplay could well entice the prospective buyer as he does hail from the said Blind Institue.
(Might as well tell this non-visionary purchaser that the mill is also painted a lovely shade of Duck-Egg Blue.)
After-all this company does have a recorded history of truth avoidance and or beguiling synthetic embellishment of facts.
Caveat emptor; qui ignorae non debuit quod jus alienum emit!
(This could even translate into; watch out there you Blind Feller, for there could be some of them there snakes in the grass!}
Posted by William Boeder on 02/02/11 at 08:40 PM
Gunn’s monopoly game was always too crazy for words. Lennon’s Labor became the ‘Community Chest’ to be raided. Whilst Gunns was in bed with the Tasmanian Government, it always kept the proverbial ‘Get out of jail free” card in the back pocket.
Now their saleable assets are sold off to pay off bank debt; the Commonwealth coffers have been filtched and Gunn’s credit card with the tax-payer is max-ed out….it should be game over.
Julia and La-la have their own fiscal bottom lines to worry about. No more public hand-outs should go to Gunns; exchange rate at parity with the $US dollar; no JVP…it should be game over!
By the way, how many Gunns shares do Messrs Gray and Gay still own?
Posted by David Obendorf on 03/02/11 at 05:28 PM
re.27. Bugger all Id say
Their not that stupid.
Hadenuff
Posted by hadenuff on 03/02/11 at 07:41 PM
Justa Bloke (#24), what sort of comment are you looking for? Do you think commenting and engaging in continuous dialogue on Gunns share price on TT is meaningful? I don’t. I can be meaningless too:
TT has had a series of article topics virtually identical to this this one. The time frame is always carefully selected. I too can choose a time frame: Gunns’ closing share price on 25 May 2010 was 26.5 cents. At close of business on 3 February 2011 (and after Share Trader told us the price went “vertical”) it was 51 cents. Wow - a 94% increase in less than 8 months.
Yep, and before you get apoplexic, I agree, it’s just as meaningless as this article on Gunns’ share price and all those that have preceeded it on TT. Waste our time on something useful.
Posted by crf on 04/02/11 at 08:29 AM
crf.
The stock exchange smart money treats Gunns shares as a long or short commodity for making money.
The wheelers and dealers need companies like Gunns with no unpledged assets,no income and vast debts, that are both totally untransparent and spin docter driven to rip money off the Mug Punters.
They use arguments such as yours to create the interest.
Posted by John Hawkins on 06/02/11 at 07:46 AM
#29. With Gunns assets cupboard so empty I don’t see why anyone would take a long position in this company. I think you have 1/2 a point though re shorting which obviously happened institutionally recently.
Posted by mjf on 06/02/11 at 08:59 AM
crf.
Google gns asx and look under Gunns announcements to the ASX, then under No Longer or Becoming a major Shareholder then peruse the purchase or sale of Gunns shares.
If Gunns could make money at this speed every Lib/Lab polly so inclined would be driving a Bentley.
Some consolation,at least I am ahead in your book ,I am afraid you are still way behind in mine.
Posted by John Hawkins on 06/02/11 at 02:19 PM
Hawkins (#31), what has that got to do with the price of fish? I take shifting an argument to mean the opponent has lost the debate.
My comment (#28) was about the meaningless selection of time periods to highlight falls in Gunns share price.
I don’t give two tosses what Merrills, Matthews Capital, Concord or anyone else’s trading robots are doing.
You might also learn the argot if you want to be the expert - it’s “substantial” share holding, not “major”. That is an officer rank in the Salvation Army.
Posted by crf on 07/02/11 at 11:02 AM
Re #28
“I can be meaningless too:”
You said it. And never a more true word was spoken.
And so say all of us.
Posted by Russell Langfield on 07/02/11 at 08:21 PM
“I take shifting an argument to mean the opponent has lost the debate.”
Glad to see you joining in, master (#33). You were beckoned and came running.
Posted by crf on 08/02/11 at 08:02 AM
Why no new comments about Gunns’ share price going vertical again last week. That is, vertically upwards!
Because the market knows something ... the mill’s going to be built!
Posted by crf on 06/03/11 at 01:21 PM
Three years ago, before all the chicanery, Gunns share price was $3.65c. Since those heady days there has been a consistent decline with a few fluctuations and now they are just gambling chips for the big boys to play with. Buy a couple of million today, sell a few tomorrow and push the price up and then cash in and make a killing. It’s roulette in the biggest casino in the world. It has very little to do with expectations of the company, as they are deeply in debt, look like falling over any minute and haven’t had an interim dividend this last half year, so as a long term investment, they ain’t looking too good. The share price is just hovering around the firesale price of the assets, depending on whose valuation you accept.
Posted by Barnaby Drake on 06/03/11 at 06:38 PM
#35 something is afoot, by the sound of it. Pity that Joe Public will be the last to find out. Didn’t have time to check the price for myself, and if I ever were to buy shares, I’d consider something that could be described as an ethical investment. It’s a real pity that Gunns can’t move back to being timber millers, on a scale commensurate with our geography. Blessed be the meek.
Posted by Garry Stannus on 06/03/11 at 07:28 PM
I would of thought it was pretty bloody obvious. The market usually factors imminent positive or negative price sensitive news into the price of any stock - days and even weeks prior. The share price has gone up because the market knows the mill is about to get a tick from the Feds. Thats all folks. Calm down
Posted by Squizzy on 06/03/11 at 10:45 PM
Please, please, please,someone please point out in reply to my #35 that it’s just as meaningless to get excited on TT about an upward climb over a carefully chosen period as it is to select a downward trend.
Barnaby Drake (#36), Gunns might struggle with cashflow at the moment but their net assets are significant - enough to buy their stake in the pulp mill.
Garry Stannus (#37), of course something is afoot: a pulp mill project about to get its final approval, announcement of a partner, and the start of construction.
Posted by crf on 07/03/11 at 08:03 AM
#39 crf
I hope that the mill doesn’t get final federal approval. I wrote a further entreaty to Mr Burke a little while ago. That’s three Ministers who’ve sat in the chair. I got my smokey Tamar photos to Mr Kelty yesterday, while the upper Tamar was coincidentally swaddled in smoke. It was the early beginning of the burning season.
The mill that you would hope to see, crf, has never had majority support. Not that that makes it necessarily correct or not. The Tamar mill is wrong for other reasons. There are wrongs that have been done that can’t be undone. Trust broken. The will of the majority itself should have been recognised, for the sake of our democratic principles. We’ll keep on opposing the mill, and I guess you’ll keep on supporting it. It’s not too late for you to change.
And we watch as Gunns put all their eggs into the one basket, all their remaining money on their hopeful in the last race ... ‘pulp mill’ which got the inside barrier. It’s starting price has improved a bit recently, paradoxically, in racing, that means it’s seen as having less chance of getting to the post. I prefer the 10 year chart when I look at Gunns share price. That tells the story of this whole debacle. Their graph speaks louder than words.
Posted by Garry Stannus on 08/03/11 at 06:24 AM
40#. crf, how is the insider information business trending at the present time?
Is the market still holding-up in its trade of such current marketable items as lies, deceit, dishonesty, hood-winking mis-informations, you know, the usual bag of Gunns Ltd’s forestry industry commodities?
Your friend Bemused seems to think that now is the time to make purchase of as many of these shares as possible, perhaps you too should invest your wordly goods on Gunns Ltd shares also.
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