Financial Standard | 29 April 2025
New Forests buys into Burapha
By Karren Vergara
New Forests has acquired a majority interest in Burapha Agro-Forestry, a timber plantation forestry company in Laos.
New Forests' Tropical Asia Forest Fund 2 (TAFF2) together with Mirova's sustainable land use strategy have invested in Burapha, a Lao-Swedish plantation and wood products manufacturing company.
New Forest now has a 76.5% stake in Burapha while Mirova and another minority shareholder gained a smaller stake.
With 6000 hectares, the land comprises conservation areas, a plywood mill, and a voluntary carbon project focused on plantation afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR) issuing carbon credits compliant with Verified Carbon Standards since 2023.
New Forests Asia senior managing director Geoffrey Seeto said there is significant scope for expansion of Burapha's plantation forest areas, as well as the ability to build out the voluntary carbon project that has already been developed and implemented.
"Laos' availability of land, combined with possessing highly conducive biological growth conditions, and being strategically located in near proximity to areas of significant wood deficit, makes it an attractive investment destination," he said.
This is the third acquisition for TAFF2. The fund made its first investment in conserving and restoring the Kuan Kreng Landscape (KKL) in Thailand, which holds the country's second largest peat swamp forest area.
In 2011, Stockholm-based SilviCapital via its subsidiaries SilviLao AB and Bafco AB acquired Burapha. Following the acquisition, Burapha set out to build a timber plantation asset in Laos large enough to be the core wood supplier for a major industrial operation.
SilviCapital caters to family offices and institutional investors seeking industrial scale agroforestry opportunities. The fund manager also has a presence in Paraguay.
Burapha chief executive Przemyslaw Pruszynski said: "This is an exciting development for Burapha. New Forests is a leading forestry and natural capital focused investment manager, with in-depth, specialist knowledge of the landscape for forestry in Laos, including forestry management and local community engagement."
New Forests has US$8 billion in assets under management across nature-based real assets and natural capital strategies.
Its subsidiary New Agriculture recently launched a landscapes and natural capital investment strategy that invests in rainfed and irrigated row cropping, horticulture, livestock, and related agriculture infrastructure.