Institutional Investors

The $40m pledge is thought to be the first commitment to a global timber and farmland vehicle by South Korean investors.

Founder Stephen Johnston told Agri Investor that the manager has also raised C$60m for a separate open-ended vehicle targeting institutional investors with a buy-and-lease strategy focused on Canadian farmland.

Another institutional-scale asset has hit the market Down Under, expected to generate broad-ranging buyer interest and offers exceeding $40m.

Set to commit to its first three GPs, the state-backed institution is also investing FICA 3, the $117m latest vehicle of its agribusiness PE series.

The investment by an unnamed Canadian pension brings Fund IV’s total haul to C$130 million.

Capagro Innovation is majority-backed by institutional investors and already a third deployed.

US GPs do not seem too concerned about a tax reform limiting interest expense deductibility.

Less active as competitors for land and facing succession issues, US farmers are giving a jolt to the market by divesting assets, panelists said at the Agri Investor Forum.

A series of transactions sees the collaboration between several LPs and Silver Creek Asset Management add the pension to its ranks, along with an additional 121,000 acres of timberland.

The £60bn UK pension fund, whose allocations to timber and agri total nearly half a billion pounds, believes it can deliver 'superior after-cost risk-adjusted returns’ by going direct.