Pope Resources (POPE) Wednesday reported fourth-quarter net income attributable to unitholders of $2.3 million or $0.52 per ownership unit, rising from $1.7 million or $0.35 per ownership unit in the year-ago quarter.
Revenue for the quarter surged to $17.8 million from $8.5 million last year.
Pope and its subsidiaries Olympic Resource Management and Olympic Property Group, own or manage 178,000 acres of timberland and development property in Washington and Oregon.
Fee Timber operating income for the quarter was $5.5 million compared to $1.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. The company attributed the surge to the combined impact of a 164 percent increase in harvest volume, which increased to 29 million board feet or MMBF in 2011 from 11 MMBF in 2010, and a 17 percent boost in average realized log price, which increased to $565 per thousand board feet or MBF in 2011 from $481 MBF in 2010.
Net income attributable to unitholders for the year ended December 31 totaled $8.8 million or $1.94 per ownership unit, on revenue of $57.3 million. In 2010, net income attributable to unitholders totaled $2.0 million or $0.43 per ownership unit, on revenue of $31.2 million. Results for 2010 included a loss on early debt extinguishment of $1.2 million.
David Nunes, president and CEO, said," The big story for 2011 was strong demand from China for logs and lumber. We were well positioned to capitalize on this surge in demand since all of our tree farms are tributary to export log ports. Based on both new properties acquired by our second timber fund in 2010 and significant amounts of deferred harvest volume from 2008-2010, we had a record harvest year in 2011 at 90 million board feet."
For the full year 2011, the Real Estate segment posted an operating loss of $349,000 on revenue of $4.5 million, compared to 2010's operating loss of $809,000 on revenue of $3.5 million
In 2012, the Poulsbo, Washington-based company expects strong demand from Asia, with some log price weakening expected relative to 2011. Poor housing markets are expected to remain a drag on both domestic lumber and real estate markets for the near-term.
Separately, the company announced a quarterly distribution of $0.35 per unit, effective for unitholders of record on March 15, 2012 and payable on March 29, 2012.
POPE is currently trading at $44.40, up $0.08 or 0.18%, on the Nasdaq. Over the past year, the stock traded in a range of $38.00 - $50.29.
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