Rayonier Inc. (NYSE:RYN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Ketan Mamtora: Okay. No, that’s fair. And then just second question, Mark, you talked about sort of $600 million that would get to sort of the pro forma net leverage target, what you guys just talked about. So should we be thinking about as initial proceeds to all go towards the repayment or not necessarily? It would depend following the $150 million that you talked about already. After that, does it depend on kind of what opportunities do you have? Is that the way we should be thinking about it?

Mark McHugh: Yes, absolutely. I mean we’ve always preached a nimble approach to capital allocation. and we absolutely expect to stick with that during the course of this disposition program. As I said earlier, we have $150 million of the floating rate debt that’s currently far and away, our most expensive debt in the portfolio. We expect to retire that immediately upon completion of the Oregon sale. We have another $150 million that will become floating next year. And so certainly, that $300 million of floating rate exposure will be our highest priority for repayment. But again, as I said earlier, we don’t have another debt maturity until 2026, and all of our debt will be fixed at very low rates through that period of time. So we have a lot of flexibility in terms of the timing of deployment of these proceeds, and we’re going to, of course, focus that allocation of proceeds on whatever way we think is going to build value per share for our shareholders over this period of time.

Ketan Mamtora: Got it, that’s very helpful. I’ve done it. Good luck.

Operator: Thanks. The next question will come from Michael Roxland of Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, guys. This is [indiscernible] on for Mike. We had conflicting calls today. Thank you all for taking my questions. and congratulations, Dave. And Mark, I was hoping you could comment on what’s happening with pulpwood pricing, particularly in the South. Just given the backdrop and some of the comments we’ve heard from the major paper players given potentially improving demand looking forward and in the face of capacity closures or some economic downtime. And again, saying the stocking is like included. Could you just talk about how it’s played out during the quarter and how you maybe see it playing out into 4Q?

Doug Long: Sure. This is Doug. I’ll take that question. So as we discussed on our last call, while there’s been some fluctuations kind of imported pricing based on geography or harvest type or mix. We think on an apples-to-apples basis, that pricing period to bottom out in Q2, and we’re increasingly encouraged by some of the signs we’re seeing in our price negotiations through Q3 and really into Q4. And so I think has historically been the case, we’re going to see a shift of volume that goes to our Gulf states from our Atlantic kind of states in Q4. So that improvement pricing that we have seen in some places will be moderated because of the shift and we typically have lower price in the Gulf states. But overall, we feel like we kind of saw the bottom in Q2.

Q3 was moving forward in the right direction. And we’ve seen with some of the mill announcements, you mentioned some of the closures, we’ve also seen some of the current ones that are an operating area actually step back up and move from 60% to 100% capacity. So we’ve actually seen increased demand in some of our wood baskets with those closures. And thankfully, our direct exposure to most of the mills that no closures there was very limited. And so we have seen the upside being portrayed in some of the mills that we do have closer relationships too.

Unidentified Analyst: Perfect. Thank you. That’s very helpful. And then you guys — we’ve touched on it briefly during the call today, but could you give maybe a more detailed update on your land-based solutions pipeline or any progress you made during the quarter?

Doug Long: Yes. Sure. Happy to do that. We’re going to have an earnings call in February, so I won’t go too in depth, but we’ve continued negotiations with the counterparties, both on the carbon capture storage as well as the solar that Mark mentioned. And those continue to go well and extreme interest in those. We’re pleased with where that process goes. Like I said, probably we’re really talking more about this in February, so I don’t have a lot to quote. We have had increased options on our solar. So we’ve increased another 2,000 acres added over the quarter and our solar business, bringing us up to about 28,000 acres to the our lease or options. So we have had some move in our solar business.

Mark McHugh: Again, just to reiterate that point, we do expect our land-based solutions business and kind of the upside potential we see there as being a focal point of our Investor Day that we announced for February 28 of next year. So more to come on that front.

Unidentified Analyst: Perfect. Thank you. That’s it from me. I’ll turn it over. Thanks, guys.

Operator: And our last question for today will come from Buck Horne of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Buck Horne: Hi, thanks. Good morning, guys. Most of my questions are answered, but also congrats to everybody on the team and all their promotions and thanks to David for all the hard work over the past decade. Just on the Oregon transaction, do you guys have an expectation for a taxable gain or loss versus your cost basis and what you think the total IRR on that transaction versus the 2016 purchase is going to work out to be?

Mark McHugh: Yes. We won’t disclose the basis around that transaction until it’s ready to close, but there will be a substantial gain on that transaction. Recognize that when we acquired that asset, it was pooled with our broader portfolio in the Pacific Northwest. And so that won’t necessarily be reflective of a book gain on that specific asset, but rather the pooling effect of combining that asset with the other lands in the Pacific Northwest. And recognize as well that this was a subset of the broader acquisition of the Menasha properties in 2016. And so we haven’t provided any specific details around the IRR on that.

Dave Nunes: The balance of that being in Washington, but…

Buck Horne: Got it. Got it. That’s helpful. And I guess a broader question about just longer-term dividend sustainability. I understand you’re certainly going to be CAD accretive paying down this first tranche of floating rate debt, I think I had to define it for the next tranche, that certainly probably is cash flow accretive as well. But then the rest of the proceeds potentially paying down fairly low-cost fixed-rate debt and/or quite a few large portion of those proceeds also going to special distributions. How you reconcile the longer-term dividend sustainability post the full disposition program?