May 21, 2024

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Stafford Capital Partners announced that a major Korean pension fund has invested $200 million in its flagship SIT X timberland fund, and has agreed to a further $100 million co-investment sidecar vehicle. 

Stafford Capital has a track record of 24 years of success investing in sustainable managed timber plantations – over which time its team has gained extensive experience and insight into how forests are a key component to combating climate change. 

And for investors who are looking to offset their own carbon footprint, or are looking to diversify their holdings through commercial forestry, this asset class has become quite attractive, noted Angus Whiteley, CEO, Stafford Capital Partners, who commented that the accelerating support they are seeing for timberland as an asset class illustrates the growing net-zero aspirations of forward thinking institutional investors on a global scale. 

With more than $3.7 billion in AUM across 100-plus underlying assets, Stafford’s timberland fund portfolio currently stores more than 316.8 MtCO2e of carbon and sequesters 16.6 MtCO2e of carbon each year on an ongoing basis while providing consistent and strong returns and meaningful contributions toward investors’ climate targets. 

“We are experiencing globally significant support for this asset class, with important recent investments into SIT X from the UK, North America, Korea, and Europe,” said Whiteley. 

“With investor focus on the carbon sequestration potential of commercial timber growing, we expect interest in this asset class to only accelerate, providing a significant potential first mover advantage for institutional investors who are looking at timberland now as part of their alternatives strategy.”   

Whiteley continued, “We believe we are uniquely positioned to offer impactful, discounted access to timberland assets through pooled investment vehicles and co-investment opportunities.”

This shift in focus and a widely held respect for the Stafford Capital team and its mission has been reflected in the fact that over the course of 2023, the firm raised a significant $945 million across its secondary and carbon strategies.

Its tenth fund – SIT X – was launched in January 2023 with a fundraising target in place of $1 billion, of which, $635 million has been raised to-date, evident of the fund’s forward momentum. The fund’s first close was held in March 2023, and expectations are that it will see its final close during Q3 2024.

Meanwhile, SIT X has so far deployed $160 million, illustrative of the robust investment pipeline there is to be capitalized upon in the timberland space.

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor in chief with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and Agtech Intel News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

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