Agro-Ecological Investment Management, a private equity and real estate asset management company, will launch its first fund, the Agro-Ecological Farmland Investment Fund 1, in the first quarter of 2010.
The fund will invest in farmland in New Zealand, acquiring conventionally-managed farms and converting them to organic production. It will focus on profitable, sustainable and ecologically-cognisant farmland asset management.
Agro-Ecological raises funds from individual and institutional investors to deploy in the agricultural sector.
“We have identified a number of prospects for this first fund, and we look forward to beginning our investment process early in 2010,” says Geoff Burke, Agro-Ecological’s managing director. “What we are doing, in essence, is opening up an out-performing and secure asset class that has hitherto been unavailable to investors.”
Though New Zealand is currently Agro-Ecological’s primary investment target, the firm is also looking at opportunities in South America – principally Uruguay – Southern Africa and the US, where demand remains strong and where many markets are undersupplied.
Agro-Ecological Farmland Investment Fund 1 will launch with approximately USD50m to USD60m in investment capital.
