The shortcomings of "classical" model of economic development of the forest in Quebec, a model-dependent structures and continentalisées massified of large transnational corporations, continue to deepen, to lie down and feed back them. Like other large timber companies operating in Quebec and Canada, AbitibiBowater is undergoing a crisis of liquidity and solvency crisis it has itself helped to produce a pushing growth pattern at the end of its practical consequences. The last period of consolidation, which began booming stock market from the late 1990s, gave birth in 2007 of a behemoth named AbitibiBowater, incorporated in the United States and flown from Montreal, who is struggling to justify its burdens with industrial stakeholders of a financial system combining dysfunction. AbitibiBowater operates in a market for forest products that collapsed, manages industrial facilities with minimum profitability thresholds are evaluated on a global scale, and now behind a debt of $ 6.2 billion, which does no-doubt, determines a large part of discussions at business meetings and did nothing to make sexy rating this elephant in the eyes of financial analysts. This discount becomes very real when a loan of $ 350 million to be refinanced next March, and about 1 billion $ Loan must be repaid or refinanced at the end of the coming summer.
This crisis of solvency, which is the "symptom" of a crisis model, senior management of the company is currently trying to manage it by disposing of assets that have a very good liquidity. This is the case of hydroelectric dams that the company counts among its assets in at least three Canadian provinces - Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland (although in the latter province claims ownership), but also For forested areas. If assets such as dams are now selling for high prices the North American energy, it is the same for forest lands, which constitute a sort of safe haven in times of crisis, and on the basis of which some organizations - especially financial - are likely to develop a funding strategy.
After announcing plans for a first round of sales of dams in recent months, including facilities in Ontario who planned to be sold to the investment fund Brookfield Asset Management for $ 200 million, AbitibiBowater said Friday February 20, 2009, it had completed the sale of three large areas under forest management (lordships Perthuis Mauricie, Nicolas Riou and Lac Mitis in the Lower St. Lawrence), totaling nearly 76,000 acres. As a result, the company fetched $ 70 million in additional cash, allowing it to increase its funds available for loan refinancing maturing after tomorrow. A little oxygen, yet.
Before being sold to Solifor, a limited partnership of the Solidarity Fund QFL, these woodlots had been a proposal to purchase the part of elected representatives of the Lower St. Lawrence. Having mobilized the most leverage regional, these officials have requested that the Quebec government - by through the FMS - also involved in this significant transaction, which would have put under regional governance these "assets" are the extraordinary lordships Nicolas Riou and Lac Mitis. It turns out that for nearly 15 years, these territories were used as experimental basis for developing an alternative model of forestry, forest sharecropping model framed by the federal government has met or exceeded all expectations that industry, local governments and fed to him. However, this experience, perhaps too successful in the eyes of some, has been arrested. And proposed a re-collectivization of lordships, proposed by the MRC Rimouski-Mitis and La Neigette and backed by the past experience of sharecropping, was denied. Offer too little interest, beaten by another? Maybe. Not Enough réencastrés in the economic fabric of the region, however, these lots have been acquired by a fund in Quebec, perhaps more concerned about economic and ecological aspects of long-term forest development:
"The fear that people the region is that the territories were in the middle of our region fall under interests Ontario or the U.S.. So here they are Quebecers who have acquired these territories. I do not think the Solidarity Fund is used to let her sleep investments, "said Richard Savard, head of the forestry file at the Regional Conference of Elected Representatives of the Lower St. Lawrence.
But it will see and closely analyze the business plans developed by Solifor. In the case of the lordship Perthuis Mauricie Fund QFL embarked on a joint venture with Sawmill & son Dion, a local sawmill. Remains to be seen what will happen in the Lower St. Lawrence, which formula will be tested. Between mandate of economic development that respects life forms, and that of superior financial performance, the Investment Fund QFL is a financial organization may make contradictory choices.
In many see the economic history of Quebec and Canada, we can see easily that a model in crisis does not mean an outdated model or radically transformed. One can see the emergence of a refurbished model, as is the case in Quebec for a long time. But this crisis continental characteristics of the model offers new opportunities to bring about a new, more respectful of economic and ecological areas. The sale of these lots forest, rich qualitative and a special long-term value for the region and Quebec, would indeed have been an opportunity for local communities, regionally and nationally to establish their bases development, including developing formulas socioeconomic allowing forest communities to reclaim much of the forest rent. Or rather, to try to avert the return of the same, that this is a dress rehearsal, and everything remains open for a new political economy forest.
0 comments:
Post a Comment