The American giant enters the forest sector in Patagonia

For at least a decade, Timberland Investment Group, a division of US-based BTG Pactual fund, has attempted to land in the jungles of South America.

The dream now comes true with the confirmation of the agreement to purchase 79,000 hectares distributed in southern Chile.

The investment, approximately $400 million, demonstrates the strong interest in expanding Timberland, which has more than 50 years of experience in the forestry business in various parts of the world.

Currently, the fund owns more than 1,000,000 hectares distributed in Latin America and the United States, DF published.

In her portfolio, she has assets valued at more than $4,000 million.

Timberland was acquired by BTG Pactual Bank in 2012. That same year, the Brazilian-born company entered the Chilean financial business through the acquisition of Celfin Capital.

According to Chilean media, BTG Pactual has decided to buy from the local company Arauco about 460 properties that make up nearly 80 thousand hectares.

The main point of the negotiations was the proximity of the Mapuche settlements to these forests.

BTG Pactual has experience with this type of conflict because they have experienced it with indigenous communities in Brazil.

Timberland knows this. In fact, a special department has arisen within his organization responsible for working on the relationship with the communities in which he owns land.

Timberland’s business is logging, but for some time he refocused the model toward less invasive development. What it does, through another division called Hunting Leases, is implement minimally invasive tourism developments on its acres until the forests develop.

This way, you earn extra income while you can’t take advantage of logging.

For example, this is what he does in the state of New York, in the United States. Rent cabins deep in the woods. The work lasts about 10 years, until the trees are mature.

defender He wonders if this model can be implemented in Chile, but at the moment there is no answer to that.

Timberland does not get into the Chilean forestry business alone, it does so with BCI (British Columbia Investment Management Corporation), one of the most relevant investment groups in Canada, and APG, a pension fund from the Netherlands that is in the world’s top three .

Although the business had always been through the exploitation of cultivated forests for timber, now everything is different.

Timberland, BCI and APG strive to “go green” in times when taking care of the environment is the focus.

Owning assets that help mitigate climate change is essential. In addition, it contributes to the Chilean forests obtaining good international certificates.