Domain Timber Advisors sells commingled funds’ forestry assets

Domain Timber Advisors has completed the sale of 11 forestry properties in the US with an average size of 280 acres and a value of $1,429 per acre.

“Most of the 11 sales came out of two commingled funds,” Domain Capital Group business development director Patrick Leardo told Agri Investor. Domain Timber Advisors is a subsidiary of the group.

“[The commingled funds] have a number of institutional investors, high-net-worth individuals and pension funds invested in them. We also had one sale out of a separate account as part of the 11 as well, and that’s a high-net-worth individual,” Leardo added.

Since its foundation in 2017 by Domain Capital Group, which has $6 billion of assets under management and a history in real estate, Domain Timber Advisors has pursued a short-term buy-and-sell strategy in timberland.

“We like being nimble in this space and only holding a property for as long as it makes sense,” said Leardo. “We’ve had properties that we’ve held for a year or less that we’ve monetized. We might hold a property for three to five years. The longer term would be 10 years, but that would be pretty long-term hold for us.

“We think it makes sense to buy a property, fix it in some way, monetize it and redeploy that capital in a new property,” he said.

The firm typically purchases “inefficient” assets that range between 500 acres and 20,000 acres in size, said Leardo, which are then repurposed to make then attractive to retail buyers through the addition of aesthetic elements or wildlife.

Domain Timber has also pursued a strategy of packaging a series of small and midsized forestry assets, which have been sold to institutional investors.