The News Tribune Business Team will keep you updated on what's happening in the South Sound and beyond. Check here for news about economic development, aerospace, shopping and much more.
Talk to us
Got something to say? Here's the place to say it. We welcome your comments on what's going on in business in the South Sound that we should be discussing, reporting or analyzing here on our blog or in the pages of The News Tribune.
Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
- All
- Aerospace (1477)
- Banking (179)
- Commercial Real Estate (145)
- Consumer Alert (28)
- Downtown Tacoma (225)
- Economic Development (273)
- Employment/Workplace (283)
- Food (32)
- General (1920)
- Labor (178)
- Port and trade (275)
- Residential Real Estate (77)
- Restaurants (145)
- Retail (63)
- Shopping (320)
- Technology (133)
- Tourism (742)
- Your view (7)
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| << < | > >> | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | |||||
- October 2009 (59)
- September 2009 (83)
- August 2009 (109)
- July 2009 (98)
- June 2009 (107)
- May 2009 (108)
- April 2009 (124)
- March 2009 (100)
- February 2009 (95)
- January 2009 (112)
- December 2008 (100)
- November 2008 (101)
- More...
XML Feeds- excile
- artman77
- Guest Users: 265
To all those investors who want Weyerhaeuser to spin off its timber assets, the company says not right now.
The Federal Way-based forest products company told investors and analysts today that converting its trees to a real estate investment trust as early as next year wouldn't be tax efficient, Bloomberg News reports
“That does not preclude the REIT option in 2010,” Chief Financial Officer Patricia Bedient said today in a presentation to investors in New York.
Weyerhaeuser’s sale of its divisions including fine paper and corrugated packaging prompted speculation that the company would spin off the trees to reduce taxes on profits from timberlands.
“We’re patient, maybe too patient, but we still think the value of the timberland will be shown over time,” Russell Croft, who helps manage $725 million at Croft Leominster Inc., said today in a telephone interview from Baltimore with Bloomberg News.
More from the Bloomberg story:
Weyerhaeuser fell $2.94, or 4.4 percent, to $64.50 at 12:45 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. A close at that price would be the biggest drop since Jan. 4. The shares declined 8.5 percent this year through yesterday.
As a corporation, Weyerhaeuser’s timber profits are taxed at a corporate rate of 35 percent, more than double the rate paid by investors in REITs such as Plum Creek Timber Co. and Potlatch Co., according to Robert Willens, president of Robert Willens LLC, a New York-based tax adviser.
`Timber-Centered’
“Conventional wisdom suggests that Weyerhaeuser will become more “timber-centered” and migrate toward a tax-efficient REIT structure,” Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. analyst Mark Wilde said in a May 27 note to clients. Wilde has also suggested the company consider going private to profit more from its timber investments.Croft said he was encouraged by comments from Weyerhaeuser executives that the company will continue to sell non-core assets and trim head-office expenses. Conversion to a REIT will require that most of the company’s profit is generated from investments in forests.
“They’d be jumping the gun if they said today they were converting to a REIT in six months,” Croft said.
Weyerhaeuser yesterday said it was seeking strategic alternatives for its Westwood Shipping Line and four regional railroads.The company has also closed mills and sold assets amid a slowdown in U.S. lumber demand. Decreasing home construction and losses at Weyerhaeuser’s homebuilding unit led the company to report a worse-than-expected first-quarter loss of $148 million.
