The American giant enters the forest sector in Patagonia

For at least a decade, the Timberland Investment Group, a division of the US-based BTG Pactual Fund, has attempted to land in the South American continent and its forests.

The dream is now coming true, with the confirmation of an agreement to purchase 79,000 hectares distributed in southern Chile.

The investment of close to $ 400 million shows the strong interest in expanding Timberland, which has more than 50 years of experience in business related to forestry in different parts of the world.

Currently, the fund has more than 1,000,000 hectares distributed in Latin America and the United States, according to the DF.

In her portfolio, she has assets valued at over $ 4000 million.

BTG Pactual acquired Timberland in 2012. In the same year, the Brazilian-born company entered the Chilean financial business through the acquisition of Celfin Capital.

According to the Chilean media, BTG Pactual has decided to purchase from the local company Arauco about 460 properties that make up nearly 80 thousand hectares.

The main point in the negotiations was the proximity of the Mapuche settlements to these forests.

BTG Pactual has experience with this type of conflict as it has lived with indigenous communities in Brazil.

Timberland knows this. In fact, a special department has sprung up within his organization responsible for working on the relationship with the communities in which he owns land.

Timberland’s job is to cut down trees, but for some time he refocused the model towards less invasive development. What it does, through another division called Hunting Leases, is implement minimally invasive tourism developments on its acres so that forests can develop.

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This way, you earn extra income while not being able to exploit logging.

For example, this is what he does in New York State, in the United States. Rent cabins deep in the woods. The work lasts about 10 years, until the trees mature.

Cannons He wonders if this model can be implemented in Chile, but at the moment there is no answer to that.

Timberland is not involved in the Chilean forestry business alone, it does so with BCI (British Columbia Investment Management Corporation), one of Canada’s most closely related investment groups, and APG, a Dutch pension fund that sits in the top three in the world. .

Although the business has always been tapping planted forests for timber, everything is different now.

Timberland, BCI and APG strive to “go green” at times when caring for the environment is the focus of attention.

Owning assets that help mitigate climate change is essential. In addition, it contributes to the achievement of good international certificates for Chilean forests.

Aileen Morales

"Beer nerd. Food fanatic. Alcohol scholar. Tv practitioner. Writer. Troublemaker. Falls down a lot."

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