Gresham House Asset Management is launching a UK forestry fund for institutional, family office and professional investors.
The fund, which will focus on high-yielding spruce forests, has a £25m (€32.1m) target size.
The fund is seeking annual, unlevered net returns of 10%.
Gresham House said its forestry manager subsidiary Aitchesse would acquire a portfolio of five forests in west Scotland for £12.1m.
The deal is due to complete by July.
The portfolio is being sold by a property trust controlled by a UK pension scheme.
Rupert Robinson, managing director at Gresham House Asset Management, said: “The opportunity to purchase such an attractive forestry asset as the cornerstone investment for the fund is particularly exciting.
“The fund will be Gresham House’s first new collective investment vehicle investing in forestry, a growing asset class for institutional, family office and professional investors.”
Gresham House took over Aitchesse as part of a move into real assets last November, paying £7.7m.
With IPD’s UK Annual Forestry index outperforming equities and bonds over the last 20 years, Robinson last year said forestry offered investors a “unique combination of long-term, superior, risk-adjusted returns”.
