Hart expands CHH's timber operations

Carter Holt Harvey announced today that it is acquiring the timber manufacturing and distribution operations of the Weyerhaeuser Australian Group for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition will include the sawmill assets of Green Triangle Forest Products and the distribution operations of Pine Solutions Australia. Carter Holt is a subsidiary of Rank Group, which is owned by New Zealand's richest man, Graeme Hart.

Carter Holt said that the transaction would not include the timberland assets owned in joint venture by Weyerhaeuser and Global Forest Partners.

A non-binding letter of intent had been signed, and was subject to approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Foreign Investment Review Board, said the company.

Carter Holt said the combination of the Weyerhaeuser Australia businesses with its own Wood Products Australia business represented the best immediate strategic step in improving the combined business.

Ironically Hart put Carter Holt's Wood Products New Zealand, Wood Products Australia, Carter's building materials chain and furniture and joinery business Interion on the block last year, amid estimates that the suite of assets could fetch about $2 billion.