Several bids for the forestry plantation assets are being considered from potential domestic and overseas buyers by Great Southern's receivers, McGrathNicol, which should yield an eventual return for thousands of investor-growers. That should result in a new entity responsible for managing the 1998 to 2008 timber operations to replace the insolvent Great Southern Managers Australia whose lack of funding has threatened all of the group's 45 managed investment schemes.

Buyer interest in the pulpwood businesses was stimulated by the recent $345 million sale of the timber plantation operations of Timbercorp, the other big MIS group to collapse this year.

"We have been encouraged by the robust competition for these assets, and are obviously pleased that this response will provide investors in these schemes with a range of options to consider in the near future," said Tony McGrath of McGrathNicol on Friday.

Final bids must be submitted by October 31, with a decision expected soon after.

The investor-growers will vote on the eventual successful deal, which should result in the paying off of much, if not all, of the bank debt secured against the pulpwood assets.

But the position of other investors in the horticulture schemes such as almonds, olives, grapes and vineyards and the softwood and high-value timber businesses is a great deal less certain.

Mr McGrath said there had been "limited" interest in replacing Great Southern Managers and that the proposals received so far had been "largely underdeveloped".

Describing the challenges in maintaining many of the schemes as "extraordinary", Mr McGrath held out little hope of most of the schemes surviving in the longer term.

The likely result is that they will be wound up.