Phaunos Timber Fund, an UK-based investment company, recently announced the sale of 100% of the equity shares of Green Nature Forestry Company Limited ("GNFC") for USD 2.85m. The sale includes properties owned by Green China (Jiangxi) Forestry Company Limited ("GCJX"), a wholly owned subsidiary of GNFC established in Nanchang, Jiangxi, China comprising of approximately 58,000 mu or 4,000 ha of plantations.
The sale is in line with the Company's strategy of rebalancing the current portfolio to one that has more mature, yield producing assets. The transaction price of USD 2.85m represents a 3.5% discount based on the unaudited Net Asset Value at June 30, 2015.
The disposal concludes Phaunos' divestment in China.
The proceeds of this sale when combined with the recently announced sale of two Eucateca teak properties and the three Pradera Roja properties amount to an estimated USD 9.55m (net present value of future payments of USD 9.25m) relative to a combined Net Asset Value of USD 9.16m. Stephen Addicott of Stafford Timberland said "The completion of the Green China sale is another key milestone in reducing the risk profile of the Phaunos portfolio. Due to a lack of scale, the costs of managing Green China have been disproportionate to the small size of the asset and the sale will provide further substantial cuts to Phaunos' annual operating costs".
