James (Jim) Rinehart
Jim Rinehart is a forward-thinking forest investment executive with proven expertise in timberland acquisition, acquisition analysis and due diligence, debt financing and financial structuring, regulation and policy, and the interface between forest investment and Conservation. He has served on the Boards of private and non-profit organizations.
Leadership, Experience, Track Record
Jim Rinehart brings twenty-five years of experience in investment forestry, including the positions of Director of Portfolio Strategy for the Hancock Timber Resource Group, Vice President and Director of Timberland Investments for GATX Capital Corporation, Director of Conservation Investments for Huber Resources. With R&A Investment Forestry, he brings two decades of consulting on investment analysis and regulation and policy. R&A now focuses on U.S. forest portfolio management.
In 1998, Mr. Rinehart formed the GATX Capital Timberland Investment Group to make equity investments in timberland as a new corporate asset class with a focus on partnering with industry and other regional timberland owners and managers. While at GATX, Rinehart established a broad presence and built a wide array of contacts and relationships with investors, forest products industry, lenders, investment bankers, regional timberland owners and managers, attorneys, consultants, and industry in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, contacts still active today.
With specific regard to institutional timberland investors, during the last fifteen years, Mr. Rinehart has in some form worked with every TIMO and numerous other timberland investment managers in the forest investment industry. He knows the founders and management of these organizations personally and understands fully their requirements and constraints. Examples of Mr. Rinehart’s and R&A’s activities include:
• In 2011, on behalf of Focus Global Forests, a European global forest investment fund, R&A sourced, acquired, and organized management for forest investments in Florida and California. R&A currently manages these assets, providing the interface between investors, property, and portfolio management.
• Due diligence, acquisition and sale of timberlands in the U.S. South and Pacific Northwest on behalf of GATX Capital, FGF US, and others.
• In 2005, R&A was a key strategic advisor to the noteholders of Scotia Pacific, the timberlands division of Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO), as they attempted to resolve the complexities of their relationship with Palco and Maxxam, its parent company.
• In 2007, as North Coast Redwoods, LLC (NCR), an R&A subsidiary, R&A led an effort to acquire and operate the forest assets of Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO) on behalf of a large, global institutional investor in partnership with one of the industry’s largest lumber producers and a mainstream forest conservation NGO. While the competing group, a multi-billion dollar private investor, was successful, the effort established R&A as a viable manager of institutional scale forest assets.
• For six years Mr. Rinehart was founding member of the Board of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, a 501(c)3 non-profit formed in September 2006 as part of the Softwood Lumber Agreement with Canada.
• For five years, Mr. Rinehart served on the Board of Cascade Timberlands, an owner of 300,000 acres of timberland in Eastern Oregon. He has also served on the Advisory Board of the California Wildlife Conservation Board, a part of the California Department of Fish & Game responsible for distributing $315 million of public capital committed to forest conservation.
• Mr. Rinehart works frequently with key conservation organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, The Trust for Public Land, and The Conservation Fund.
Over a period of twenty years, R&A has been involved in valuation, due diligence, acquisition, and disposition of more than $500 million forestland assets.
Valuation, Due Diligence, Investment Analysis
R&A has conducted numerous acquisition processes for institutional timberland investments, is current on market conditions in all operating regions, and skilled at valuation and due diligence as buyer and seller. R&A is expert in the appraisal process and has a clear sense for the difference between appraisal and investment analysis.
Conservation
R&A has been involved in forest conservation through the establishment of creative partnerships between Conservation and financial investors. R&A has a well-developed knowledge of conservation valuation, both of fee simple and easement interests, the needs and constraints of conservation funding, and the attributes and risks of conservation easements.
Financial Skills
R&A has well-developed financial structuring skills. While at GATX, Mr. Rinehart gained experience in bringing structured finance to partnerships between timberland investors, between investors and industry, to supply agreements, and in general to the creation and operation of long-term investment partnerships. GATX Capital is a public company and an acknowledged leader in creating structured partnerships between owners and users of various long-term assets.
Communication and Marketing Skills
Mr. Rinehart is a skilled writer and a published author with excellent communications skills.
Vision
In a 1983 Forest Products Journal article, Institutional Investment in U.S. Timberland, Mr. Rinehart predicted the growth of institutional timberland and a growing separation of resource ownership from processing. Since then, institutional timberland has grown from less than $100 million to more than $50 billion globally. In 2010, Mr. Rinehart published Post-Recession Timberland: Is it the Same Asset?, a widely regarded article characterizing the nature of timberland investing in a new economic era. Mr. Rinehart was also an early participant in the emergence of partnerships between financial investors and Conservation.
Industry Affiliations
• Society of American Foresters
• Board of Directors – Cascade Timberlands, LLC.
• Board of Directors – U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities
• Board of Advisors – California Wildlife Conservation Board
• Steering Committee – University of Washington Forest Forum
Education
Master of Forestry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
MBA, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
BS, Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
