New Forests hires investment staff

The $8 billion nature-based real assets manager has launched a new business and hired four investment professionals.

New Agriculture will build a portfolio of agriculture assets globally, starting in Australia and New Zealand.

Bruce King has been named director of agriculture, with Ben Mason joining as a portfolio manager.

Ben Pickles will serve as manager of operations alongside Jamie Lord manager of investments, who has moved across from the parent.

King joins from Regional Investment Corporation, where as the chief executive, he ran $3 billion in financing for investments in the agricultural sector.

Before that, he was an investment manager for Blue Sky Alternative Investments, and spent 13 years at Rabobank International in several roles, including head of agribusiness risk and treasury management and rural treasury sales.

The second recruit Mason most recently spent four years at Roc Partners as vice president of agriculture.

Before that, he was an associate director at PwC, working in the food and agribusiness advisory team.

Earlier, he was a senior policy manager at the New South Wales Farmers Association.

Meantime, Pickles was most recently finance business partner, operations and investments at Kilcoy Global Foods.

Previously, he held similar roles with some of Australia's largest land and water holders, including Hassad Australia and MSF Sugar.

Lord joined New Forests in 2013 after an almost 20-year career in agricultural investment.

During his time at New Forests, he managed the operations and growth of its existing portfolio of agricultural assets and has been responsible for divesting properties from forestry to agricultural markets.

Most recently, he led the successful Lawson Grains transaction.

According to Mark Rogers, New Forests' senior managing director for Australia and New Zealand, the new agriculture business builds upon New Forests' 17-year track record managing forestry and other landscapes for sustainable production.

"Like forestry, agriculture is a real asset which provides investors with a strong cash yield, a natural inflation hedge and is uncorrelated to other asset classes," he said.

He added that combining experience in forestry with agriculture aims to optimise the value of the land between sustainable food and fibre production, carbon sequestration, conservation, and community benefits.

"We believe that improving agricultural land management and optimising landscapes for multiple uses will help the global economy transition to a sustainable future."