As if battling the natural elements wasn't hard enough, man-made ones have taken the axe to agricultural supplier and timber scheme manager Futuris.

And it's basically due to a misunderstanding over tax.

Even the chief executive has been felled, although a 20 per cent profit downgrade didn't help.

Futuris, best known for its Elders business, had been running a nice line in June 30 timber schemes until the Tax Office clamped down on tax deductions for horticultural schemes such as almonds and olives.

This seems to have been misunderstood as an attack on timber schemes as well - which it isn't. In fact, in a time of climate-warming sensitivities, their tax deductibility is assured.

But the Futuris subsidiary Integrated Tree Cropping, with an estimated one-third market share of forestry schemes, has been dragged down with walnuts and tea tree oil.

The slump in interest in June 30 schemes hits Futuris hardest next year because almost two-thirds of their revenue typically comes in the second year.

That's right, this won't show up until 2009-10. You might want to pin a note up somewhere to remind yourself.

Anyway, it has more immediate problems, apart from finding a new CEO.

Futuris has long been seen by analysts as a case of the parts adding up to more than the whole, which the market says is worth about $900 million, possibly because there are so many bits and pieces it's hard to see the big picture.

In which case its promised sale of assets should reap some good money.

Top of the list was farming operator AAco, which has been hit hard by the drought, stronger dollar and soaring grain feed costs.

Yes, it would have been sold at the worst possible time so it's probably a blessing in disguise that Futuris didn't find any buyers.

If anything, it should be increasing its stake in AAco while it has the chance. For its part, the loss-making AAco is sitting on rising land values.

Futuris is trying to become a pure agribusiness, a strategy that will make it even more susceptible to the vagaries of the weather.

Judging by its success in marketing barley, it could also be a winner from the abolition of the AWB's wheat export monopoly.

As well as cattle it has interests in fruit and vegies (Websters), tuna (Clean Seas) and property (Westralia), yet there's also a telco arm and it was part of the Opel bid for the proposed rural broadband network, since dumped by the new Government.

The other business oddity is Futuris Automotive, which supplies seating and interior trim for cars.

Advantages

* Dividend yield

* Agribusiness model

* Asset sales

* Food boom

Disadvantages

* Profit downgrade

* Chief executive vacancy

* Seasonality

Verdict

* Performance

* A perpetual disappointment, with less downside risk by the day thanks to a big price fall. More analysts see it as a buy than a sell.