UniSuper joins pension funds to buy Tasmanian forestry play

The news: UniSuper will team up with two European pension funds to buy Tasmanian forest management company Forico and a hardwood plantation in the southern island state. The assets are currently owned through multinational natural asset manager New Forests.

The numbers: Under the deal, UniSuper, the UK’s Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and Dutch pension fund APG will own a third of Forico and a 170,000ha plantation in Tasmania. The New Forests-managed fund has owned the assets since 2013.

The context: Forico is Tasmania's largest private forestry company and owns vertically integrated and key assets across the supply chain, UniSuper said in a media release. Hardwood plantations are a source of wood for products including construction timber, pallets, furniture and white paper, and more recently have been used to sequester carbon dioxide due to younger trees' ability to absorb carbon dioxide more efficiently than old growth forests.