Global Forest Partners lists Hume Forests for sale

US-headquartered asset manager Global Forest Partners has placed its Hume Forests softwood plantation estate on the market.

GFP has owned the asset since 2004, which is planted with radiata pine and covers a freehold land area of approximately 19,000 ha. Around 14,000 ha of the land is productive.

Hume Forests is located in the Oberon and Murray Valley regions of central and southern New South Wales, close to forestry assets managed by the government-owned Forestry Corporation of New South Wales and other private asset managers.

Resolute Advisory has been appointed to manage the sale. Resolute declined to comment on the potential value of the deal or which GFP vehicle owns the Hume Forests asset.

The sale follows GFP’s divestment of its Green Triangle Forest Products estate in 2021, a process also managed by Resolute.

Those assets were located in south-east South Australian and south-west Victoria in an area known as the Green Triangle and the deal was worth more than A$700 million.

AXA IM Alts was the buyer for Green Triangle Forest Products, its first foray into Australian forestry. The assets are being managed on its behalf by British asset manager Gresham House Forestry, also the first time that the firm has looked after an asset in Australia. Gresham House chief investment officer David Gardner joined from GFP in June 2020.

The latest sale is expected to attract interest from a similar suite of institutional investors, and is “expected to build on its track record of delivering high quality product to the market to produce steady returns from ongoing thinning yields and forest growth in the short term, and strong sawlog clearfell yields and growing cashflows as the estate matures,’ according to a statement from Resolute Advisory.