Gunns Limited (ASX:GNS) is an Australian forestry company, with activities covering the milling, processing and merchandising of timber, merchandising of hardware and building supplies.

It has been one of the shares to sell for much of the past six years, plunging from around $4.40 in early 2005 to current levels around 21 cents.

GNS came out of a six week trading halt today, with the group announcing a restructure of its business and the sale of non-core assets.

GNS said the sell-down of inventory and decommissioned sits is expected to generated around $60 million in 2012.

Furthermore, an agreement with the Tasmanian government may see GNS receive $23 million upon exit of its operations there.

These steps are intended to help GNS retire $340 million of debt in January 2012.  The group also forecast an FY12 underlying EBIT of $40 – $50 million.

The stock has been fairly volatile today, plunging 15% on the open before reversing sharply.  It is currently one of the few gainers in today’s share market action.

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Gunns Ltd (GNS) is a Tasmanian-based hardwood forest products company, which supplies hardwood woodchip to Asian pulp mills.  Its operations span sawn timber, local hardware merchandising forestry managed investment schemes.

GNS is listed as a materials sector company, and is one of the smaller companies (by market cap) in the Australian stock market.

Last week, GNS upgraded FY10 operating earnings guidance to $50 – $60 million, from the previous $30 – $40 million.

The earnings upgrade was largely due to increased revenues from the company’s plantation management services.

The share market welcomed the news, with GNS shares skyrocketing over 16% on the day of the announcement.

Despite this, GNS has been one of the shares to sell since late February when it reported a massive drop in 1H10 net profit.