A Scandanavian pension fund has poured $20 million into Australian dairy farms to help lift stagnant local milk production.
- Stock & Land
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25 August 2014
American pension fund giant TIAA sold its Southern Riverina farming aggregation between Wagga Wagga and Albury in southern NSW to local Australian farmers after more than a decade of ownership.
Norway’s central bank is divesting the country’s $870 billion pension fund of its holdings in four Asian multinationals for palm oil in Southeast Asia. POSCO and Daewoo were excluded for the activities in Merauke, Indonesia’s Papua province.
A US pension fund investor that flies under the radar has continued its spending spree on quality agricultural land in WA with the purchase of two farms in Grass Patch for about $9 million.
- West Australian
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11 August 2014
A top US retirement fund and a major sugar producer have found themselves embroiled in a probe into possible breaches of land-purchase rules in agricultural superpower Brazil.
- Bloomberg
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17 December 2020
Money from pension funds has fuelled the financial sector's massive move into farmland investing over the past decade. The number of pension funds involved in farmland investment and the amount of money they are deploying into it is increasing, under the radar.
Les fonds de pension sont peut-être l’une des rares catégories d’accapareurs de terres auxquelles les gens peuvent couper l’herbe sous le pied, pour la bonne et simple raison que c’est de leur argent qu’il s’agit.
Africa is regarded as the New Eldorado, and is attracting many foreign based private or public investment companies, sovereign wealth funds and even pension funds gradually. Sadly, while foreigners continue to play a major role in growth investments, African pension funds' contributions to this growth are dismal.
- Huffington Post
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17 November 2012
The results of pension funds’ alternative investments have been passable so far. In the case of farmland, at the end of last year the average total annual return over a 10 year period was more than 10%.
For almost ten years, AP Pension has bought farms for DKK 700m (EUR 94m). Now, private equity fund Erhvervsinvest will take over the administration and ”develop” the portfolio.
Pension funds may be one of the few classes of land grabbers that people can pull the plug on, by sheer virtue of the fact that it is their money.
Swedish pension fund AP Fonden 2 has invested $750 million to TIAA-CREF Global Agriculture II, confirming rumours that the pension was one of three foreign investors contributing to the vehicle’s $1.4 billion fundraise.
Some pension funds are beginning to question their investments in commodities after accusations that massive flows into the sector have distorted markets, fuelled food inflation and hurt poor nations.
Depuis une dizaine d’années, l’argent des fonds de pension alimente un énorme investissement dans les terres agricoles. Le nombre de fonds de pension investissant dans les terres agricoles et les sommes d’argent déployées à cette fin sont en augmentation, mais tout se fait discrètement.
Pension funds are deepening their commitment to farmland, upping investments by billions of dollars and moving to active strategies, as a hedge against potential inflation and to diversifty from riskier investments.
Pension fund giant TIAA is investing its clients’ funds in farmland and agribusinesses tied to environmental and human rights abuses in Latin America.
After ten years, the Ärzteversorgung Westfalen-Lippe (ÄVWL) has withdrawn from highly problematic land purchases in Brazil through is investments in TIAA-CREF Global Agriculture LLC.
One of Canada's largest pension funds, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, has made its first rural land purchase in Australia through central Queensland's Hewitt Cattle Company.
- Financial Review
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20 April 2015
Listen to an interview with Maria Luisa Mendonça of Rede Social on US teachers' pension fund TIAA investments in Brazil land grabbing and deforestation.
- Free City Radio
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17 November 2021
A first €20m has already been invested in olive orchards in Portugal, with possible investments in Danish organic vegetable farming, American potatoes, barley and wheat as well as kiwi fruit in New Zealand.
Report on the growing popularity of farmland investment in the developing world for European pension funds
- IPE Magazine
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01 July 2010
A new report from the Oakland Institute, reveals that several well-known pension funds, trusts and endowments are invested in a group of oil palm plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused of environmental and human rights abuses.
Sweden’s AP2 and UK local authority funds are among the backers of a new $3bn global agriculture fund.
The Swiss association of the largest public pension funds, has decided to exclude shares in the French group Bolloré SE. The exclusion is justified by “potential human rights violations in Liberia, Cambodia and Sierra Leone”.
- Gotham City
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12 September 2023
AP Pension, the Danish labour-market pensions provider, has hit out at media reports that its chief executive quit in December because of pressure from the supervisory board to invest in the agricultural sector.
Denmark's PKA has invested DKK250m (€33.5m) in African agriculture via the Silverland private equity fund (a SilvertStreet Capital fund)
A pension fund(!) has seeded(!) a new company (i.e., not a fund!) that will invest its own assets as well as those of peers(!) in actual farms(!) in the developed and developing world!
- Institutional Investor
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23 May 2012
Storebrand, the largest private pension fund in the Nordic region, is divesting its shares in eleven of the twelve palm oil companies in which it is invested.
- Regneskogfondet
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23 January 2014
University of Iowa faculty members write that major collegiate employee retirement savings manager must divest from socially irresponsible farming pension fund investments and be transparent in doing so.
- Daily Iowan
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18 November 2020
UK pensions funds and asset management companies potentially have up to £37 billion invested in ‘land grabs’ worldwide, according to a report published by Friends of the Earth.
- Blue & Green
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12 June 2014