One of the world’s largest forest managers has entered into a new partnership with Japanese forest giant Oji Holdings to establish the Future Forest Innovations Fund – a corporate fund to help Oji drive its 2030 Environmental Action Program. Wood Central understands that the partnership will see an almost US $300m investment from Oji Holdings, along with a co-investment from New Forests.
“We are excited to partner with Oji, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of pulp and paper, to establish the Future Forest Innovations Fund as a new initiative that leverages our 20 years of experience managing forest investment funds,” according to Mark Rogers, New Forest’s CEO. Rogers said the forest manager is seeing growing interest from corporations investing in natural capital assets.
“By investing in sustainable forest plantations in four major regions of the world, we will be assisting Oji to achieve their 2030 mission of growing their sustainable forestry assets and reducing overall carbon emissions.”
Mark Rogers, New Forest’s CEO, on the new Future Forests Innovations Fund.
Under the terms of the deal, Oji will look to grow on it’s 635,000 hectares of forests under management, by adding 70,000 additional hectares of productive plantations in Southeast Asia, North America, Latin America and Africa: “Through the operation of this fund, we will combine the diverse expertise of New Forests, an expert in forest management, with our own forest management technologies,” a spokesperson from Oji said. “We aim to develop products that use wood resources and contribute to the realisation of a sustainable society.”
Timber is being viewed as an increasingly lucrative investment vehicle.
Last week, Wood Central reported that Stafford Capital Partners raised more than US $1.1 billion in one of the world’s largest forest funds. Angus Whitely, CEO of Stafford Capital Partners, said the fund – now the fifth largest after BTG Pactual Brazil Timberland Fund II, Brookfield Global Timber Fund II, Brookfield Timberlands Fund V and The Reforestation Fund – was focused on investment in the secondary market.
“The secondary market (which trades in assets primary investors had previously bought) is one that’s not populated with many players…so for a motivated seller, we get the opportunity to buy it (the stake) at a reasonable discount.” Angus Whitely, CEO of Stafford Capital Partners, on the value of forest assets in the secondaries market.
- To learn why institutional investors are looking to invest in productive forestry to “combine a large-scale sustainable investment with compelling risk-adjusted returns,” click here for Wood Central’s special feature from October 2023.
