Natural Resources and Land
Do the Capital Markets Reward Low-Carbon Business Models?
Jan 15th, 2019 | Filed under: Newly Added, Commodities, The A.I. Industry, Investing in Commodities, Socially responsible investing, Natural Resources and Land, Emerging Alternative Investments, oil, Alternative energy, Commodities, Commodities: Examples, Climate change, Real Assets, SRI and Clean Energy, Other Topics in A.I.A new study by two scholars, an American and an Italian, presents evidence that financial markets are pricing the risk of reliance upon carbon, penalizing carbon-intensive assets and rewarding low-carbon assets. Irene Monasterolo and Luca de Angelis, respectively of Boston University and the University of Bologna, begin with the ParisRead More
Agtech: Comfort Zones and Value Chains
Dec 11th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, Real Estate, Agriculture, The A.I. Industry, Investing in Commodities, Debt Types of Private Equity, Liquid and Fixed Income Real Estate, Venture capital, Farmland, Equity Types of Private Equity, Natural Resources and Land, Commodities, Other Issues in Private Investments, Private Investments, Real Estate Equity Investments, Real AssetsAn agtech-focused venture firm has issued a report about global VC activity across agtech and its subsectors. The firm, Finistere Ventures, which describes itself as in the business of helping “ambitious founders transform food and agriculture,” collaborated with Pitchbook in preparing the review. Finistere looks specifically at: (a) macro trends,Read More
Agtech Investment and the Future of Food
Aug 14th, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, Private Equity, Agriculture, The A.I. Industry, Venture capital, Farmland, Equity Types of Private Equity, Natural Resources and Land, Angel investing, Private Investments, Real AssetsFinistere Ventures, a venture capital firm that describes itself as in the business of helping “ambitious founders transform food and agriculture,” has teamed up with Pitchbook to produce a dataset that would enable “clear insights into financing activity and metrics in the agtech sector.” The result was the Agtech InvestmentRead More
KPMG’s Report Cards on Real Assets
Jan 23rd, 2018 | Filed under: Newly Added, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Liquid and Fixed Income Real Estate, Institutional Investing, Natural Resources and Land, Operationally Intensive Real Assets, Institutional Asset Management, Real Estate Equity Investments, Real AssetsKPMG has posted a new paper looking at the role of real assets (defined as “anything where there is a tangible/physical asset being traded”) within a portfolio, with a focus on opportunities for U.K. based institutional investors, especially pension schemes. It begins with a brief survey of the field. RealRead More
Around the World with a Timberland Outlook
Dec 7th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Natural Resources and Land, Real Assets, SRI and Clean EnergyNew Forests, an Australia-based investment manager focusing on strategies in forestry, land management, and conservation, has published its 2017 Timberland Investment Outlook. This paper begins with the observation that institutional investment in timberland now amounts to more than $100 billion. This makes it still a “relatively small” asset class, butRead More
Accounting Issues and Investing in Timberland
Jul 6th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Natural Resources and Land, Real AssetsOn May 3, 2017, Ernst & Young made available the bullet points for a presentation on the “accounting, financial reporting, and regulatory considerations” affecting investment vehicles in this space. Mark to market or historic cost In general, the presentation says, the accounting treatment depends on where on a spectrum ofRead More
Wine: French Producers, U.S. Consumers, the World’s Investors
Jul 4th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Natural Resources and Land, Emerging Alternative Investments, Real Assets, Other Topics in A.I.Agrifrance recently posted a report looking at the French wine industry, with an especial focus on export to the United States. The U.S. “has been the world’s leading wine market by value since 2013,” says the company head, Benoit Léchenault, in a preface to the report. France is the secondRead More
Timberland Investors See 0% Growth Rate for Harvesting Costs
Jul 3rd, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Natural Resources and Land, Real AssetsToday, we’ll look at KPMG’s effort to determine who exactly the investors in timberland are, what their underwriting assumptions are, and what are their expectations for the coming 12 months. The firms surveyed included North America’s timberland investment market participants with five different structures: appraisal or consulting organizations; integrated forestRead More
Real Assets and Environmental/Social Impacts
May 11th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Natural Resources and Land, Alternative energy, Real Assets, SRI and Clean Energy, Other Topics in A.I.It’s an old debate: does socially responsible investing under its variations (including “impact investing”) come at a cost in terms of risk-adjusted performance? Or does it actually add a dividend, so that one does well by doing good? Or are impact and non-impact investing in otherwise comparable assets on aRead More
Highlights in the Growth of Farmland Funds
May 9th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Agriculture, Farmland, Natural Resources and Land, Real AssetsHighquest Partners and a product strategist for timber and agriculture at GMO LLC (Julie Koeninger) have collaborated on a white paper on the history of farmland investment, at its heart the story, first, of how farmland has grown (since the late 1980s and the rebound from the farm crisis earlierRead More
Metals and Mining: A Tale of Two Doughnuts
Apr 12th, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, The A.I. Industry, Industry Size & Managers, Natural Resources and Land, Real AssetsPreqin has turned its Spotlight on Real Assets in a new publication, drawing our attention in particular to metals and mining. Among the institutional investors that say they are targeting unlisted metals and mining focused funds over the coming twelve months, Preqin names three as “samples”: the Compagnia di SanRead More
SWFs Looking to PEs Both as Intermediaries and as Co-investors
Feb 2nd, 2017 | Filed under: Newly Added, Infrastructure, Natural Resources and Land, Operationally Intensive Real Assets, Real AssetsA recent working paper from the European Corporate Governance Institute discusses direct investment by sovereign wealth funds in private equity transactions – that is, it discusses an ongoing shift from investing in PE funds to co-investing with PE funds. The paper describes this as a trend especially viable in theRead More
TIAA Report On Responsibility and Farmland
Dec 11th, 2016 | Filed under: Newly Added, Farmland, Natural Resources and Land, Real AssetsBiff Ourso, TIAA’s portfolio manager for agriculture investments, says in a prefatory message to their new report that “concerns have been raised about whether investment in regions such as Brazil contribute to land conflicts, lead to the displacement of local people … or foster excessive pesticide usage.” TIAA, which hasRead More
Preqin on Ag Funds and Their Managers
Dec 1st, 2016 | Filed under: Newly Added, Farmland, Natural Resources and Land, Real AssetsFundraising for agriculture/farmland-focused funds has been remarkably strong recently, according to research by Preqin, the multi-national data and consulting firm. Farmland has been aptly described as the “oldest alternative investment” and dates as far back as 9,000 years ago. The focus on Preqin’s special report on agriculture is somewhat more recentRead More
Islam, Western Pensions, and Real Assets
Oct 18th, 2016 | Filed under: Newly Added, Institutional Investing, Intellectual Property, Natural Resources and Land, Operationally Intensive Real Assets, Institutional Asset Management, Real Assets, Allocating to A.I.A recent academic discussion of the much-vexed question of Islamic finance (including the always at least implicit query, how does it fit into the broader usually non-Islamic global picture?) focuses on the role in Islam of real assets, understood as tangible objects such as land, buildings, machinery, and commodities. TheRead More
Private Capital Fundraising Slows: Green and Brown Valleys
Jul 14th, 2016 | Filed under: Newly Added, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Farmland, Natural Resources and Land, Operationally Intensive Real Assets, Real Estate Equity Investments, Real Assets, Other Topics in A.I.Preqin, the multinational data and consulting firm, has looked at the second quarter and found it was, for private capital fundraising … slow. So was the quarter before it. Together they made up the first half of 2016, in which the funds closed in the world of private capital globallyRead More
A Perennial Gale Hits the Coffee Industry
Jan 11th, 2016 | Filed under: Newly Added, Commodities, Agriculture, Investing in Commodities, Farmland, Natural Resources and Land, CommoditiesThe popularity of the drip coffee maker is in decline, or at least it has passed its peak. In 2013. 58% of coffee drinkers had used such a coffee maker on the day before the day they were asked, that is, “yesterday.” That number was down to 54% in 2014,Read More
PwC on Mergers and Acquisitions Activity
Jul 28th, 2015 | Filed under: Currencies, Agriculture, Alpha Strategies"Not moving is more risky than moving," said one CEO asked about mergers and acquisitions. "We will make more acquisitions, but they’ll probably be larger in nature, more transformative. " Read More
Farm Land: The Risks & Rewards of Buying Direct
Jun 7th, 2015 | Filed under: Real Estate, Infrastructure, Institutional Investing, FarmlandGuest columnist Andrew Smith, CAIA, examines the risks and rewards of investing directly in farmland.Read More
Contexts for Population Growth, U.S. and China Co-Dependence, Fracking
May 26th, 2014 | Filed under: Agriculture, Emerging marketsWhat is the big picture for these authors? Are China and the U.S. trading places, so that China will have a middle class and the U.S. won’t? No. What is happening is a bit more subtle than that. Read More
GFIA: Ag Commingled Products Suffer From Market Noise
Jul 26th, 2012 | Filed under: Agriculture, Alpha StrategiesGiven reasonable assumptions, one might expect that those investing in commingled products offering exposure to agriculture would take part in both good investment returns and diversification benefits. Alas, though, GFIA found no such thing, and considers the possibility that agriculture as an asset class has decoupled from fundamentals. Read More