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Family Office Sentiments on Forest Investment with Gabriela Leslie
Season 1, Ep. 13
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Join me today as I speak with Gabriela Leslie, Senior Manager, Food, Agriculture and Natural Capital at the Creo Syndicate - a membership organization that supports its family office members to better understand the latest developments in climate investing. It creates a platform for private family investors to come together, learn from each other and collaborate on investment opportunities to solve the climate crisis. In this illuminating conversation, we dig deep on how family offices are different than institutional investors and how this shapes why they consider forest investment, how they evaluate opportunities and what is challenging the attractiveness of forest investments currently (but the outlook is positive).
“So, we find that there’s a decision-making process that comes in around, not only is this a good investment and can this scale, but you know, is the impact really meaningful?”
Host: Shauna Matkovich - The Forest Link
Producer: Magdalena Laas - https://www.linkedin.com/in/laasmagdalena/
01:25
An overview of the Creo Syndicate
02:49
The profile of family office investors compared to institutional investors
06:21
Family office capacity to evaluate forest investments
08:29
Change in family office sentiment around investing in nature and why it is attractive
12:25
Sentiments on forests versus other natural climate investment strategies
16:15
The role of carbon markets
16:58
What makes forest investment strategies challenging at the moment
19:35
Exploratory and catalytic capital into forestry
21:47
Need for more transparency in forest investment
23:52
Emerging emphasis on biodiversity
26:18
Family office approach to catalytic finance
31:42
Investment vehicles suitable for family offices
35:55
Actionable advice for forest investment managers to attract more family office capital
37:27
Links (see below)
Significant quotes:[04:41] the lack of firepower means there’s a greater premium on capital efficiency and impact.
[05:12] So we find that there’s a decision-making process that comes in around, not only is this a good investment and can this scale, but you know, is the impact really meaningful?
[08:21] Our members come to the nature space with a lot of enthusiasm. I’d say this is a market shift over the last few years. We previously had folks come to us interested in nature but not really ready to engage [...] there’s more literacy around financial markets intersecting with nature now that there ever has been.
[22:23] I think some transparency around that counterfactual piece (Improved Forest Management) would be really important in helping uplift the reputation o the sector as an impact strategy.
[27:52] So catalytic in our mind doesn’t need to be philanthropic. It just needs to be risk on, it needs to be impact first. And we see some really great examples of folks coming in and they’ll either cut the first cheque or they be the last.
Links mentioned:Creo Syndicate: https://www.creosyndicate.org/
Sound Library:- Nature by MaxKoMusic/Soundcloud
- Sopwell Woodlands and Scohaboy Bog SAC, Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, IRELAND by wild_rumpus/Soundcloud
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