Forum Archive Index - February 2004

["David & Jill Stevenson" <djstevo@quicksilver.net.nz>]

With appropriate respect Phaedrus to an obvious craftsman in his field. No amount of  historical TA charting is going to have  a correct read on whether 2004 might not be an unusual year for CAH  taking readings at this point in time where undercurrent manoeuvering may be soon surfacing impacting on share price. The narrow band on trading in recent times is partly,maybe significantly, attributable to the fact that ,apart from negativity aspect surrounding the log trade and $NZ/$US  adverse exchange  

movement, no fundamental course changing has occured in the industries within which CAH does it`s business. Except its presence in Chile. Except,of course, strong domestic construction activity on the local scene has cushioned the negativity mentioned  above helping keep the share price within a less volatile trading band as you mentioned.

 

   Why this might be an exceptional year could be the outcome of rumours that Oregon-based timber investor Campbells are speculated to be interested in CAH 330,000 ha estate.  A fundamental factor such as that is less frequent than Haley`s comet. Has anyone done an exercise at varying realisation prices from a tender process and assuming the possibility of a full capital return to shareholders , though that is not likely . If that happened ,and only the residual and .I believe. successfully  operating industries remained operative it should be far easier to determine a more precise NTA position for CAH applying a discounted cash flow projection on other stand alone companies within the group or a given number of years capitalisation at current sustainable earnings level . Remember that stellar performer in Australia Sinsmetal was once owned by CAH.  Until now only a Grant sammuels or other  perhaps overbold assessor would dare attempt a publicly announced valuation.  Just look at FFS and CAH write downs in recent years from what they believed the year before were conservative valuations.

 

     Regards,

 

             David Stevenson