Stafford Capital Partners (“Stafford”) today announced it has established a USD 1.2 billion continuation vehicle, the Stafford International Timberland Continuation Fund (The Continuation Fund or The Fund), marking a significant milestone in the firm’s strategic management of its timberland holdings.
The Continuation Fund is a "roll-up" of three of Stafford’s existing core timberland funds – Stafford International Timberland funds VI, VII and VIII – into a new perpetual fund that will hold 74 high-quality core timberland assets. The fully-deployed portfolio took Stafford seven years to construct and holds interests in over 6.3m acres of commercial timberland in the USA, New Zealand, Australia and Latin America. This includes a number of assets that are seen as key strategic holdings in these regions where high-quality assets can be tightly held.
The Fund holds positions in the 2nd and 3rd largest commercial timberlands estates in New Zealand, one of Australia’s largest softwood forest estates and over 1.6m hectares of commercial timberland plantations in the US South, spanning 37 assets in 15 different states.
The portfolio's diversification and scale have made it a highly attractive vehicle for institutional investors, particularly for large pension schemes that view timberland as a core long-term strategic asset within their portfolios.
Of the existing investors in SIT VI, VII and VIII, 73% rolled their interest into the newly established Continuation Fund, with 27% of the investors electing to be replaced by new capital commitments. The Fund received particularly strong support from UK Local Government Pension Funds who represent 54% of the Fund - underscoring the continued investor demand from UK pension schemes for high-quality natural capital assets.
Stafford built out the portfolio between 2011 and 2018 through a mix of secondaries, primaries and co-investments and now manages 21% of the portfolio directly.
The firm plans to not raise further capital for the Continuation Fund or make new investments. It will actively manage the portfolio and seek to consolidate the Fund's holdings around the strongest performing, strongest cash-yielding assets. As part of this strategy, it will seek to sell-down approximately 28% of the portfolio in the coming years, which is expected to generate cash yields in excess of 8% over the next ten-years.
In 2024, the Continuation Fund portfolio sequestered 7.8 mtCO2e, of which part was harvested for sustainable wood products. The net sequestration of 2.1 mtCO2e is comparable to the emissions of 500,000 cars in one year12, underscoring the Fund's role in climate change mitigation as a nature-based solution. Over the next 10 years the Fund is expected to deliver net CO2 removals of 17.5 million tCO2e3, equivalent to the average annual consumption-based emissions of approximately 1.5 million UK citizens4. Beyond carbon sequestration, assets in the portfolio seek to protect and restore critical local biodiversity, support water quality, and maintain ecosystem services that are vital for long-term environmental resilience. Over 200,000 hectares of the portfolio (just over 3%), equivalent to an area nearly twice the size of London, is protected under explicit conservation easements.
Commenting Angus Whiteley, CEO of Stafford Capital Partners, said: "We are excited to offer investors access to one of the most diversified high quality timberland portfolios globally, supported by our deep sector expertise and asset management. The establishment of the Continuation Fund follows closely behind our USD 1 billion close of SIT X, our tenth core timberland fund. We believe this further signals the growing momentum and institutional interest in timberland as a strategic asset class. Through the Continuation Fund, we can offer investors access to immediate diversification, active asset management, and a proven track record of value creation.”
Commenting further Stephen Addicott, Managing Partner at Stafford Capital Partners, added: "The strong support from our existing investors demonstrates the continued confidence in our timberland strategy and in a market that continues to deliver stable returns. The Continuation Fund offers investors an opportunity to maintain exposure to a highly diversified, mature timberland portfolio with attractive cash yields and long-term value. The establishment of our first perpetual continuation vehicle is a testament to investors' belief that timberland investments are a cornerstone of long-term portfolio construction by acting as a diversified source of investment returns that support carbon sequestration."
Notes to editors
About Stafford Capital Partners
Stafford is an independent private markets investment and advisory firm with USD 8.4 billion (as at 30 September 2025) in assets under management and advice for more than 150 institutional clients worldwide. Founded in 2000, Stafford has a global team of 85+ professionals investing in infrastructure, timberland & agriculture, and sustainable private equity through secondaries, primaries, and co-investments. Stafford is UN PRI signatory and is committed to the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) Initiative. It implements an RI Policy across all strategies. In the UK, Stafford is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Firm Reference Number: 225586).
1 Net sequestration includes:
1) Sequestration: estimated from asset description data (area, species, country) and regional average growth rates published in research. 2) Carbon in harvested wood: estimated from actual harvesting data. This represents the carbon in harvested wood (logs) moved out of the physical asset boundary. 3) Decomposition of harvesting residues: estimated from actual harvesting data. Includes all non-merchantable above and below ground biomass of harvested trees (in practice left in forest to decompose over years). The estimate incorporates factors and methods from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry. The process for estimation was reviewed by a third-party consultant. Full reporting of the wood product carbon pool including onward storage and decay of wood products is not currently estimated.
2 Calculated using US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator
3 10 year estimate of net sequestration is based on 2024 values at the Fund level and includes expected asset sales.
4 Total UK consumption emissions in 2022 were 740 mTCO2e (ONS 2025). Annual consumption-based emissions per person per year calculated by total UK Consumption emissions divided by Total UK population (67 million), equaling 11 tonnes of CO2 per person per year. Total number of UK Citizens' annual consumption calculated by dividing total net CO2 removals of 17.5 MTCO2e by 11 tonnes of CO2. Using ONS dataset available here: Measuring UK greenhouse gas emissions - Office for National Statistics.
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