Fitch Rates Plum Creek's Sr Notes 'BBB-'.

CHICAGO -- Plum Creek Timber Company's (Plum Creek) debut bond issue, $300 million of 5.875% senior unsecured notes due November 2015, is being re-opened for subscription by the company. Plum Creek intends to raise approximately $200 million which will ultimately be used to repay in part around

Plum Creek is a real estate investment trust whose business is timberland ownership and the discovery of alternate land use opportunities. The company will harvest around 20 million tons of trees this year from its properties. In 2005 Plum Creek earned $565 million in EBITDA and $148 million in free cash flow (after dividends and capital expenditures), 6.5% of total debt. Leverage at last year-end was 3.9 times(x) EBITDA.

Fitch does not anticipate much change in Plum Creek's financial metrics in the near term. Increased harvests of mountain pine beetle wood from British Columbia and added fiber from hurricane affected areas in the United States will combine with a softer demand for lumber to repress log prices in certain regions. Higher interest rates and a good, but somewhat slower, demand for housing should have a similar effect on real estate values, most of which should be evident in the back-end of the current year. As a consequence, not much improvement in leverage ratios is expected; neither is much deterioration.

Additional information on Plum Creek can be found on the Fitch Ratings web site at www.fitchratings.com.

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