New Forests Inc.

New Forests Inc.

David Brand, a former Australian National University forester, founded New Forests in 2005. The firm operates as a specialist asset manager focused on timberland and natural capital, with a founding mission that links institutional returns to sustainable land use. Brand structured the firm to serve pension funds and endowments seeking inflation-hedged, long-duration assets tied to real resources. New Forests invests across three primary asset classes: timberland (plantations and native forests), carbon credits (both compliance and voluntary markets), and water rights. The firm also manages a strategy targeting agroforestry and regenerative agriculture. Known holdings include over 700,000 hectares in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and the United States. In 2018, New Forests acquired Community Forests, a New Zealand-based forestry manager, and in 2020, it launched a dedicated carbon fund (per public record). The firm has an estimated AUM of $3.5–$4 billion, up from $3.3 billion in 2017 (per a 2017 press release). New Forests operates offices in Sydney, Singapore, and San Francisco. It does not manage client capital for HNWIs or family offices; its limited partners are primarily institutional — including Australian superannuation funds and overseas pension schemes. In late 2023, the firm announced a partnership with the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund to develop carbon-credit projects in Latin America (per a November 2023 press release). A structural differentiator is New Forests' vertical integration of land management, carbon origination, and advisory services. Unlike many timberland managers that outsource silviculture or carbon trading, New Forests retains in-house forestry teams, a carbon registry, and a water-brokerage arm. This architecture gives the firm direct control over the value chain from tree planting to carbon credit issuance, a model that is rare in the asset-management universe.