St. Joe Explores Opportunities To Sell Timber And Rural Lands

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The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE), a real estate developer and manager in Florida is exploring potential opportunities to sell timber land, rural land, and/or related timber rights, according to its latest Form 8K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
St. Joe Explores Opportunities To Sell Timber And Rural Lands

The real estate company is the largest private landowner in Northwest Florida with 567,000 acres of land. Majority of its land that are not under development are used for growing and selling timber. Hedge fund manager, Bruce Berkowitz of Fairholme Capital Management is the largest shareholder of The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE). He serves as chairman of the board of the company. The hedge fund owns around 27 percent or more than 25 million shares of the outstanding shares of the company as of March 2013.

Saint Joe to sell assets “not strategic to the company’s core real estate development activities.

According to the company, it is considering the idea of selling some of its assets because of certain expressions of interests and timber market conditions. The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) emphasized that the assets it is planning to sell are those “not strategic to the company’s core real estate development activities.”

“From time to time, the company has, and will continue to, evaluate opportunistic transactions with respect to such assets. At this point in time, the company cannot determine whether any of these potential opportunities will result in a signed agreement or a closed transaction,” wrote The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) in its filing.

Saint Joe signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Enova Energy

Last month, The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Enova Energy Group, a full service, clean energy development company to develop new business and create jobs in the Northwest Florida.  It will also boost the usage of AN Railway and to make the Port of Port St. Joe operational.

According to the company, Enova Energy Group aims to transport at least 1 million metric tons of wood pellets per year using the AN Railway to the Port of Port St. Joe for further shipment in international market. The group also intends to develop the port site facilities as long as it is capable of accepting vessels of adequate size to ship its commercial wood pellets.

“Adequate infrastructure is paramount to bringing new business and jobs to Northwest Florida. The prospective rail improvements to the AN Railway are critical to open doors for economic development for the Port of Port St. Joe and surrounding areas. The last major hurdle to an operational port and new jobs is the necessary dredging improvement to the shipping channel,” said  Park Brady, CEO of The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE).

In May, The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) posted a net loss of -$2.5 million or $0.03 per share for its fiscal first quarter earnings results.  The company achieved $26.8 million revenue, but its expenses were $29 million.

During the quarter, its residential revenue increased by 111 percent, and its resort, leisure, and leasing revenue rose by 30 percent. Its forestry revenue increased by 2 percent, but its revenues from commercial development dropped by $5.8 million as well as rural land sale declined by $4.3 million.

Over the past 52-week range, the stock price of Saint Joe Company (NYSE:JOE) increased from its lowest level at $16.67 per share to its highest level at $24.44 per share. The stock was trading around $23.24 a share after hours trading on Tuesday, July 30.

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