Situation

On behalf of Plum Creek, our team members were hired to sell 4,400 acres of timber and development land throughout central Florida. The seller was looking for a strategic and accelerated method to sell the property in order to maximize price.

Strategy

We customized and executed a 10-week, 30% absolute, sealed-bid convertible and live auction sale to sell all 90 parcels, ranging from four to 657 acres. Our team utilized a “parts against the whole” tactic, allowing buyers to bid on each parcel or an entire land tract. We ultimately segmented all 90 parcels into 13 separate tracts. The sealed bid sale was conducted three weeks prior to our open-outcry sale in order to receive bids on harder-to-value parcels in private. Parcels were either accepted or added to the open-outcry sale depending on the bid results. During the live auction, we bid each tract’s parcels first, and then added a 5% premium to the total as an opening bid for the tract as a whole. If bidders were willing to pay the premium, the highest bidder of the “whole round” would win the bid.

Results

The seller committed to selling only 30% of the properties absolute, regardless of price, and chose to sell 100%. The grand sale total was $23 million. Due to the tremendous success of the sale, we were re-hired by Plum Creek to sell other portfolios, as well as by Rayonier, a national REIT.