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  "documentTitle": "Sino-Forest Corporation (TRE)",
  "authorId": "51_Muddy_Waters",
  "authorName": "Carson C. Block",
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  "documentKindLabel": "Research note",
  "sourceTypeSlug": "short_seller",
  "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller",
  "presentationDate": "2011-06-02 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "The slide uses investigative fieldwork and local government data to challenge the scale and validity of TRE's reported transactions.",
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      "text": "The sheer scale of TRE's claims regarding its Lincang City, Yunnan transaction contradict reality.",
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      "text": "Further, we made calls to a local wood product manufacturer... He is familiar with TRE, and stated that he believes TRE purchased about 150,000 mu of plantation forest... The constant throughout is that the measurement unit is mu.",
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      "text": "TRE does not disclose the Chinese translations of its agents' names. We obtained the Chinese names from PRC audit reports... We did not obtain the Hunan agent's SAIC file in time for this report.",
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      "text": "Four other agents are highly unlikely to have sold anything close to TRE's claim of a combined $2.9 billion. These agents... generally operated out of apartments while purportedly each doing annual revenue in the hundreds of millions.",
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      "text": "From our fieldwork, we were told that Gengma County's 2010 total GDP was only $475 million. If TRE were to be believed, it would have been the vast majority of the entire economy of the county.",
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      "kind": "paragraph",
      "text": "$50 million / 45,526 ha = $1,098 per ha vs. TRE's claimed purchase price of $4,865 per ha.",
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      "text": "By all indications, the Yunnan agent is a legitimate agent. Its scope of business includes “wood and wood product purchasing, processing, and sales...",
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      "text": "The sheer scale of TRE's claims regarding its Lincang City, Yunnan transaction contradict reality. The Bureau of Statistics of Lincang stated the GDP of Lincang City was $3.1 billion in 2010 (Appendix D7).",
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      "text": "Its scope of business includes “wood and wood product purchasing, processing, and sales; forestry and forestry-related product planting, purchasing, processing, and sales; specialized economic forestry and wood project development and construction…” (“木材及木材制品收购、加工、销售；林业及林下产品种植、收购、加工、销售；特种经济林木及制品基地建设和项目开发…”) — Yunnan agent business scope description.",
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      "text": "Four Other Agents are Highly Unlikely to Have Sold the $2.9 Billion TRE Claims to Have Bought",
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      "kind": "title",
      "text": "V. TRE's Dodgy Timber Agents",
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