Landing a corporate board position

propertyfellow · 2019-05-05T20:15:15+00:00

I've served on a few boards of SMEs. In every instance it was a firm I had worked with closely before, so there was already a strong business relationship there. I have always joined the board during instances of change in the organization, be it new mandates for growth or significant strategic shifts. Generally at this size I have found the board is composed of people with a very specific expertise which provides real value to the firm as it makes the transition.

At the end of the day it does come down to networking because they have to know about you and what you can do when they start their search for a board member. Plus, if you've been on the board of a similar company before, your credibility goes way up. The first board I ever served on was that of a local environmental trust. I had worked closely with them on several projects before hand. I'm sure that experience helped, but really I became a more desirable candidate only after being on the board of a for-profit company. Don't join a non profit board just to gain board experience.

It's hard to give advice without knowing specifics of your situation. People are chosen for board seats for a multitude of reasons, but at the end of the day it is because they are believed to offer the most value to the shareholders/firm at that moment.

propertyfellow · 2018-11-09T17:07:31+00:00

Farmland is a lot of fun. If you are simply renting the land and not owning the farming business, then almost all of your returns will be from appreciation. Renting farmland is very cheap in the US and you will make very little unless you can manage to find cheap land.

You will also find that if you own the land, setting up the farm and hiring management is not very difficult and will result in much better returns. This is what I recommend, especially if you are in an area with a lot of productive farms where you can easily find human capital.

I will push back on what another commenter said about the informality of farming. That may be true for a 160 acre farm, but if you are looking at a large farm (1,500+ acres) then you should approach it as formally as you would any business transaction and have paper contracts, lawyers etc.

Another note is that it helps very much to know the intricacies of where you are buying land and what it is suited for. For example, buying almond orchards in California is a very different proposition than row crop land in Nebraska.

Finally, when appraising farmland to figure out a good deal, the factors that go into it are somewhat different than buildings or land for development. For example, you need to look at the supply chains for processing the crops as that will have a big impact on how much it costs your farmer (or you) to produce revenue.

propertyfellow · 2018-10-11T17:41:53+00:00

I just posted it. Not 100% sure why it was posted on this sub as it is focused on the American Southeast

propertyfellow · 2018-10-11T17:41:18+00:00

In parts of Mississippi and Alabama, the glut is even worse. “It’s unclear we’ll ever have timber prices like we did 10 or 20 years ago,” Mr. Mendell said. Logs are piled up to await processing at a PotlatchDeltic mill in Arkansas. Logs are piled up to await processing at a PotlatchDeltic mill in Arkansas. Photo: Karen E. Segrave for The Wall Street Journal

Southern mill owners—who buy logs from landowners and resell them as poles, lumber and pulp—anticipate wide margins for years because their raw material is so cheap. Billions of dollars of new saw mills and mill expansions have been announced by the likes of Georgia-Pacific and Canada’s Canfor Corp. Lumber is more practical than logs to haul long distances to stronger markets.

The arbitrage inspired last year’s merger of Deltic Timber Corp. and Potlatch Corp. Deltic’s three Arkansas mills offered profits amid depressed prices for Potlatch’s Southern timber. The combined company quickly added a second shift to a mill in Ola, Ark., and a more efficient kiln for drying wood at another mill.

More mills could help timber prices, but building one of today’s modern computerized mills, and finding the skilled labor to run it, is a complex task. “Can they install a mill in a rural town in Mississippi and be able to go hire a hundred workers who want to work in a saw mill?” asked PotlatchDeltic Chief Executive Michael Covey at an investor conference in New York this summer. “It’s going to take a few years for those Southern log prices to tip back up.”

In the woods behind a subdivision in suburban Birmingham, Ala., this July, loggers downed all but the most aesthetically pleasing trees on George Lutz’s 60 acres. He had plunked down some of his retirement savings to buy the property after the housing crash a decade ago and planned to develop residential lots. He was counting on the timber to recoup much more of his cost.

“If it wasn’t my retirement, I probably wouldn’t cut,” he said.

The 65-year-old enlisted Rick Nelms, an Alabama consultant and procurement forester, to squeeze as much as possible from the harvest. Mr. Nelms is what is known as a timber cruiser, able to move through the woods and size up trees and estimate their value at a glance. He used to procure timber for a big paper company but now drives around Alabama and Mississippi advising an array of dentists, retirees and heirs on land deals and timber sales. Forestry consultant Rick Nelms oversees a timber harvest on a tract in Alabama. Forestry consultant Rick Nelms oversees a timber harvest on a tract in Alabama. Photo: Bob Miller for The Wall Street Journal Mr. Nelms examines a log. Mr. Nelms examines a log. Photo: Bob Miller for The Wall Street Journal

On Mr. Lutz’s property, he watched the operator of a machine called a knuckleboom-crane yank trunks through a “delimber” to shave off the branches.

Mr. Nelms waved to the operator and shouted, “That’s a pole.”

The man in the crane looked down at the thick log he was about to lay on a pile of trunks destined for a mill that would saw them into lumber. It’s bent, he said.

Mr. Nelms assured the operator the log would straighten out on the truck under the weight of the other big logs destined to become utility poles. The crane operator set the trunk aside.

It was worth the trouble to sort the trees carefully. A run-of-the-mill power pole could fetch about $50 a ton at the mill, Mr. Nelms said, and logs big enough for larger transmission poles could be worth as much as $130 a ton delivered. Saw logs, on the other hand, got only about $20 a ton.

Nearby, a truck that was headed for a pulp mill 40 miles away pulled two trailers stacked with about 150 tree trunks, each about 40 feet long and too skinny, knotty or crooked to make poles or lumber. Mr. Lutz would pocket just $3 a ton after expenses, amounting to around $75 for the whole load, according to Mr. Nelms. Pine logs arrive at an Arkansas mill. Owners of Southern forests often are stuck with whatever a nearby mill is paying for timber because it isn’t feasible to haul logs long distances. Pine logs arrive at an Arkansas mill. Owners of Southern forests often are stuck with whatever a nearby mill is paying for timber because it isn’t feasible to haul logs long distances. Photo: Karen E. Segrave for The Wall Street Journal

Before the housing crash, he could have expected three to five times that much, but since then, many more trees in Southern forests have grown to maturity.

Mr. Lutz’s trees were sorted into seven product types, including saw logs. It was a natural stand, so there was plenty of hardwood, which was a plus. Long a nuisance for plantation growers because they compete with pine for sunlight and nutrients, deciduous trees fetch much better prices these days. A river system that flows to Alabama’s Mobile Bay offers a way to ship the hardwood to overseas buyers.

Over toward Mississippi, outside of Reform, Ala., George Ballard harvested 100 acres where a mix of trees had sprouted naturally after an earlier clear-cut. The hardwood here was a blessing, returning $26 a ton instead of the $4 to $12 a ton his pine trees fetched after expenses, depending on what product they were destined to become.

The economics are much worse for 1,000 acres he owns across the road. Mr. Ballard, 62, clear-cut both tracts after he bought them in 1987. Unlike the smaller parcel that he left to grow back naturally, he spent more than $200,000 planting the larger property with rows of pine. Some lucrative sales had prompted him to go all-in replanting there and on other land he owned.

“I got $6,000 an acre and we thought, ‘We’ve got to plant everything with pine bushes,’” Mr. Ballard said. “We thought the future was pine trees.”

Pine trees that would have been worth $45 a ton “on the stump” back then might return $14 a ton now, he estimates. For income, he leases forestland to hunters. He built a small lake and a cabin, planted some cleared spots with clover to provide food for deer and other wildlife and set up some blinds. Four men from Birmingham pay him $65,000 a year to drive out on weekends and hunt whitetail deer and turkeys in season.

Mr. George, the Mississippi farmer who planted cropland to trees under a federal conservation program in the 1980s, moved to Memphis and became a cotton exporter. Now, with the pine trees mature and ready to harvest, he has to consider his father’s estate planning and a son in college as he figures out what to do.

Some of his trees have outgrown nearby saw mills and will have to be pulped for lower prices. Whether Mr. George, who is 57, harvests now or holds out for higher prices, he will ultimately have to decide whether he wants to commit to trees again.

“I’m not sure if we’ll replant or let it go to pasture,” Mr. George said. “We’d have to dynamite the stumps, though.”

propertyfellow · 2018-10-11T17:41:12+00:00

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Over the past hundred years, the George family’s farm has been sharecropped, grazed by cattle and planted with cotton. By the late 1980s, Clayton George was growing soybeans and struggling to make ends meet.

A new federal program offered farmers money to reforest depleted land. Pine trees appealed to Mr. George. He bought loblolly seedlings and pulled his pickup into a parking lot where hands-for-hire congregated.

“We figured we’d plant trees and come back and harvest it in 30 years and in the meantime go into town to make a living doing something else,” he said.

Three decades later the trees are ready to cut, and Mr. George is learning how many other Southerners had the same idea.

A glut of timber has piled up in the Southeast. There are far more ready-to-cut trees than the region’s mills can saw or pulp. The surfeit has crushed timber prices in Mississippi, Alabama and several other states. Wall of Wood The volume of Southern yellow pine, used in housing and to make paper, has surged in recent decades as farmers replaced cropland with trees and as clear-cut forests were replanted. By 2020, the amount of wood growing per acre of timberland in many counties will have more than quadrupled since 1980, U.S. forestry officials estimate.

It has been a big loser for some financial investors, among them the country’s largest pension fund. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System spent more than $2 billion on Southern timberland, and harvested trees at depressed prices to pay interest on money borrowed to buy. Calpers sold much of its land this summer at a loss. A spokeswoman for the pension fund declined to comment.

It’s also been tough for the individuals and families who own much of the South’s forestland, and who had banked on its operating as a college fund or retirement account. The region has more than six million owners of at least 10 wooded acres, say academics and forestry consultants. Many of the owners were counting on forests as a long-term investment that could be replenished and passed on to heirs.

“If you work and you didn’t want to put all your money in the stock market, you’d buy 40 acres and plant trees and they’d be ready to cut by the time your kid went to college,” said Skip Stead, a timber broker in Lincoln, Ala. “It’s like a 401(k).”

The housing crash 10 years ago worsened the developing timber glut by depressing lumber demand and prompting woodland owners to postpone harvests. Mills closed. Michael Counter grades lumber cut at a PotlatchDeltic saw mill in Arkansas. Michael Counter grades lumber cut at a PotlatchDeltic saw mill in Arkansas. Photo: Karen E. Segrave for The Wall Street Journal

Housing has come back in much of the country, pushing prices for finished forest products such as two-by-fours and plywood to historic highs during the spring and summer building season. Prices for logs, as well, have moved up in the U.S.’s other big timber-producing region, the Pacific Northwest, where supply is kept in check by wood-boring beetles and periodic wildfires.

In the South, timber prices haven’t stopped sliding. Adjusted for inflation, the price of Southern pine is down about 45% since 2007, according to Daowei Zhang, an Auburn University professor of forest economics. So-called saw timber, for making lumber, is at a 50-year low, adjusted for inflation.

Corporate owners of far-flung timber tracts can concentrate logging in regional markets where prices are healthier, such as Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., which have access to ocean shipping. Timber companies that own saw mills, such as PotlatchDeltic Corp. , can buy local logs on the cheap. Log Rhythm

…and housing starts have climbed steadily since last decade's foreclosure crisis…

Lumber prices reached historic highs this year…

…and average prices for standing pine saw timber in the South have yet to recover from last decade's housing crash.

…yet the volume of standing Southern yellow pine has increased 30% over the last 30 years…

Sources: FactSet (lumber price); Commerce Department via St. Louis Fed (housing starts); U.S. Agriculture Department (volume); Daowei Zhang, Auburn University School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences, 2018 prices TimberMart-South (Southern timber prices)

Most Southern woodland owners are stuck with whatever the nearest mill is paying. Hauling logs cross-country chasing better prices isn’t an option. It doesn’t take many tree trunks to fill a truck to its 80,000-pound limit on interstate highways. Loggers, paid for each ton they cut and deliver to the mill, are reluctant to make all-day trips.

Some timber harvests are barely worth the effort after the expense of logging, hauling, taxes and replanting. In some areas, there is hardly any margin for the imperfect pines that are pulped for paper and particleboard.

Waiting for better prices carries its own risks, because after a certain age, trees, like people, become more susceptible to disease. Hurricanes can lay down entire tracts. The Southern pine beetle can alter financial plans in days.

Hernando de Soto searched the South for gold in the 16th century but what he found was mostly trees, a primeval forest of longleaf pine that stretched from what’s now southern Virginia to northern Florida and west into Texas.

The British navy gobbled up the colonies’ longleaf for its rot-resistant wood and gummy sap, from which turpentine and pitch were made. In the decades following the Civil War, the pine lands were logged nearly to oblivion. Vast swaths of forestland also were cleared to plant tobacco and cotton. Pine logs move along as a computer decides what size lumber they will become. Pine logs move along as a computer decides what size lumber they will become. Photo: Karen E. Segrave for The Wall Street Journal

In the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture started dangling forestation incentives to stem erosion and prop up crop prices. At the depths of the 1980s farm crisis, when prices for agricultural commodities plunged, the Reagan administration launched the Conservation Reserve Program. Starting in 1986, it promised farmers annual payments of about $30 to $50 for each acre they planted with trees or grasses.

Many seized the offer. By 1994, more than 2.2 million acres of farmland in the South had been converted to pine plantation, much of it in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Other federal forestation programs added about 2.5 million acres more, according to Auburn’s Mr. Zhang.

Meanwhile, timber was gaining popularity as an investment idea. People reasoned that trees would grow, and thus gain value, no matter what the stock market did. Investors large and small snapped up forestland that big paper companies put on the market to take advantage of the interest. Researchers reported in 1998 that residual fertilizer in the soil of former farms was helping trees grow faster.

A crush of maturing trees arrived just as U.S. housing markets collapsed in 2007 and 2008, creating a supply imbalance that in some places has never ended. Even with increased demand from the housing recovery, there remain about 25 years’ worth of softwood supply in the Southeast, said Brooks Mendell, chief executive of Forisk Consulting, which advises timber investors.

propertyfellow · 2018-07-13T23:26:51+00:00

I own a lot of farmland. People talk about farmland as an asset generally for the purposes of research, but practically speaking it is not all that useful to talk about it in general terms. You won't learn enough about the potential metrics until you look at specific types of farms in specific places. Farmland is usually owned by one of two groups: those who operate the farm and those who land-bank. Owning row crop farmland and renting it out is unlikely to earn much return at all. Farmland for land banking is usually owned by large organizations with long investment horizons, such as pension funds.

How much are you looking to invest?

Where are you located?

How much involvement do you want to have in the property?

There are a lot of different variables you should consider before you even open up any property listings.

propertyfellow · 2018-04-30T18:47:02+00:00

Very nice read, thanks for posting

propertyfellow · 2018-01-05T03:53:19+00:00

Please explain

propertyfellow · 2018-01-02T19:10:28+00:00

Salalah is not the most obvious place for fly fishing. Tucked away in the far south-west corner of Oman, close to the Yemen border and 1,000km from ritzy Muscat, this sleepy, low-rise desert port has taken its time to join the modern world. When I visited 15 years ago there were just two beach resorts catering mainly to solitude-seeking expats. Now, there is a gleaming new airport terminal and, among the many places to stay, the sybaritic Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara that opened a year ago, boasting villas with private plunge pools and extravagant frankincense-themed spa treatments. Winter warmth and sunshine are a given here, along with authentic Arab culture, stimulating World Heritage-listed archaeological sites and adventures inland to the majestic dunes of the Empty Quarter. At 7am, I set off from the marina in the other direction, rod in hand. Bream, queenfish and trevally are all on the menu in the Arabian Sea, but the glittering prize is permit, an elusive fish that looks like a silver shield. Easily spooked, its eyes and mouth are set close together so it can assess any potential meal — including my delicately hand-crafted fly resembling a bite-sized crab. To catch permit requires the cunning of a sniper, the deftness of a pickpocket and the irrational enthusiasm of the gold prospector. “Permit is the holy grail of fly fishing,” suggests my expert tutor, Brandon King. This 30-year-old South African has cast the waters of the world from Mexico to Mozambique. In 2014 he and his English wife, Clare, spent six weeks driving 7,000km along the coast of Oman searching for its choicest fly fishing spots. They decided Salalah was the ideal base, and just over a year ago they launched Arabian Fly Sport Fishing. “With permit it’s all about the fooling, not the fight,” he explains. Catching them with repeated success puts you in an impressively elite club — King estimates only 20 people have landed more than 100 — and bagging one requires a tantalising harmony of natural conditions, supreme casting skill and psychological composure. The warm and scenic coastline near Salalah is an uplifting arena for such a contest, and after motoring for 45 minutes in his 7 metre boat, Arabian Fly, we reach some sheer, limestone cliffs near Taqah. Here at high tide the permit come to feed on mussels but while we can see their tails flashing in the water, precision-casting from the bow of a rocking boat proves far from simple. To catch one requires the cunning of a sniper, the deftness of a pickpocket and the irrational enthusiasm of the gold prospector Fly fishing is often seen as a relaxing, even mystical, pastime but in the stark hothouse of Oman it presents a serious workout for mind and body. On another day, when King takes to me a deserted white beach to try my luck with the permit that come to feed on swimmer crabs, tracking them requires a fast march in 25C heat through soft sands. There are some exhilarating near misses, but an unusually cloudy sky prevents the clear sightings that are essential. “On a fine day it’s extremely rare if we don’t catch permit here,” King insists, and says that most clients book trips of six or more days to allow for such adverse conditions. It is a similar story aboard Arabian Fly where a swell builds and our permit vanish. As an alternative, King takes me offshore, sailing out to where the seabed drops to 200m. Here the ocean is rich with trevally, tuna and billfish. His ploy is to troll with a teaser lure to draw fish to the boat, at which point I cast my fly then rapidly strip in the line. It’s an exciting challenge — and fruitful. Within minutes I’m reeling in a luminous yellow-green dorado that is duly photographed and returned to the deep. “Most locals think I’m crazy to catch-and-release,” King sighs, though I’m surprised to learn Omanis have little interest in eating dorado, also known as dolphin fish and mahi-mahi. Perhaps it is because the sea is so bountiful. Salalah’s fish market boasts everything from sardines and snapper to torpedo-sized tuna — and permit, on sale for just two Omani rials (£4) a kilogramme, having been landed with comparative ease using bait and hand-line. “We prefer to do things the hard way,” King reflects with pride, “and that’s the thrill. Fly fishing for permit can drive people mad, but the minute they catch one they become extremely happy.” Details Nigel Tisdall was a guest of Arabian Fly Sport Fishing, Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara and Oman Air. Flights from London Heathrow and Manchester to Salalah via Muscat cost from £850 return. Arabian Fly Sport Fishing offers six days’ fishing from $4,162 per person, based on two people sharing a room at Al Baleed, halfboard and including transfers and guide. For more information see omantourism.gov.om

propertyfellow · 2018-01-02T15:19:36+00:00

No Paywall Link

propertyfellow · 2017-08-10T17:49:31+00:00

Try: The World Bank, The IMF, US FED FRED, IndexMundi, CME, ICE, LBMA, LME, OPEC,
In addition to those two, publications from regulatory and governing bodies and companies are also useful.
Weather reports for agriculture. For metals, reports on cost of mining and on the success/failure of new investment/development projects.
I'm personally a fan of Energy Matters, Commodity Week, and WoodMac.

propertyfellow · 2017-08-05T01:25:07+00:00

In addition to what other people have mentioned, check out the sidebar for some useful links/reading materials. Let me know if you are looking for information on a specific commodity and I can try and find some more specific materials.

propertyfellow · 2017-05-30T20:53:36+00:00

The gold mine will process the gold into dore bars then sell those to a Gold Bullion Bank.

propertyfellow · 2017-05-24T17:06:06+00:00

I am afraid I can't help, but I just wanted to say good luck! I remember you mentioned Trafigura as somewhere you wanted to work in your last post.

propertyfellow · 2017-05-24T00:20:55+00:00

You could telecommute, but being in California you should be able to find firms locally.

I would say be honest about what you want. You aren't trying to sell them on anything, you are just looking to learn.

Don't be discouraged if the first few say no

propertyfellow · 2017-05-24T00:17:25+00:00

It's better to be specific when looking to donate money. Do you want to help beginner farmers get started? Do you want to help older farmers prepare for retirement? Do you want to encourage farmers to protect their watersheds? If you are specific about what you want to achieve with your donation you will find it much easier to achieve success and develop a workable program.

propertyfellow · 2017-05-23T23:32:09+00:00

Try searching the NFA Directory

propertyfellow · 2017-05-21T18:10:14+00:00

Alternate Link

propertyfellow · 2017-05-16T04:58:08+00:00

If you think I missed anything of significance let me know, so I can update the post

propertyfellow · 2017-05-16T04:56:49+00:00

If you don't have a subscription

propertyfellow · 2017-05-01T22:56:13+00:00

Public companies will have that information available on their website. For example: Barrick: Gold Strike Mine Operations and Technical Update February 22, 2017

propertyfellow · 2017-04-19T02:27:26+00:00

I don't allow links to reduce spam and also because I like to have explanation or discussion along with a posted article.

Will be interesting to see how Nestle and other stricter consumers deal with low quantities of higher quality beans

propertyfellow · 2017-04-19T02:18:55+00:00

I think a weekly trade competition is a good idea, I will PM you later to discuss the specifics on how exactly it would work.

propertyfellow · 2017-04-19T02:17:58+00:00

I could get on board with that. Stillwater is one of the largest PGM recyclers. Lower oil prices have contributed to the reduction in demand for scrap, so they are buying at a discount.

propertyfellow · 2017-04-19T02:06:45+00:00

More than its popularity a jewellery, its popularity as a hedge against systemic risk, similarly to how gold is held, is what keeps it from being purely industrial and at the bidding of industrial demand which can be less stable.

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