Q: Thanks for answering my previous question on WEF (western forest products). I have been taking a closer look at wef and trying to decide if I should liquidate my smallish position. One thing I noticed is that WEF has nearly $300 million 'on deposit' with the USA government. This is for the softwood lumber tariffs that they have had to pay over various years. This is a unique situation but what does it mean to be 'on deposit". Does any of this money ever get returned to a Canadian lumber producer? If not, then why does WEF even mention it? I found out about this in a WEF press release and I made a perfunctory search of the balance sheet and I could not find anything, although I am certainly not any expert navigating balance sheets. Does it appear on the balance sheet but I just missed it? Is this a complete non-issue or is it a hidden source of future revenue for WEF?
5i Research Answer:
WEF has $264M on deposit with the US treasury. This relates to the softwood lumber dispute which...