A PERTHSHIRE estate which sold for £145 million has sparked concerns over the transparency of land ownership in Scotland.
The 5530-hectare Griffin Forestry Estate in Aberfeldy was sold to a partnership including the UK investment firm Gresham House in July, in what land reform campaigners have claimed is one of the most expensive rural estate acquisitions ever.
Concerns have been raised over the sale as campaigners claim that Gresham House’s acquisition of the estate means the firm is now likely the second largest landowner in Scotland.
The partnership of firms also included the international investment firm Searchlight Capital Partners, a Cayman Island partnership and Gresham House Forest Fund, a Scottish limited partnership, whose partners include City of Cardiff Pension Fund and Swansea Council Pension Fund.
Griffin Forestry Estate comprises the Griffin and Moness estates and was sold to Julia Hands around 20 years ago. A wind farm was then constructed.
In 2012, Julia gifted the estate to her husband, Guy Hands. It was then put on the market in 2023 for offers over £130m.
Dr Josh Doble, director of Policy and Advocacy for the campaign group Community Land Scotland (CLS), said the sale of the Griffin Forestry Estate to Gresham House Fund is another “concerning example” of land ownership in Scotland concentrating into the hands of anonymous corporate investors.
Dr Doble said: “These opaque ownership structures have allowed Gresham House, as the apparent umbrella entity behind this purchase and many others, to repeatedly publicly deny that they are a significant landowner in Scotland.”
He added that the sale also sets a “remarkable and quite unbelievable” precedent that an average-sized Highland estate can sell for astronomical sums.
Dr Doble added the sale is “completely removed from the reality” of many Highland communities who are in dire need of investment in local housing, travel infrastructure and local services.
“This disparity raises the serious question of who is benefiting from Scotland's natural resources and how a remote corporate entity such as Gresham House can justify an apparent investment of £145m in a Highland estate, and how much of that investment will be benefiting the local area,” Dr Doble said.
The £145m sale price of the Griffin Forestry Estate would mean the land was valued at more than £26,000 per hectare.
CLS added that Gresham House FF VI LLP have just fundraised £375m for its forestry investment fund, adding that it demonstrates that industrial forestry, along with wind farm leases, is highly profitable, but the sector still benefits from subsidies and tax breaks.
Dr Doble said: “The rationale for such seemingly generous handouts to wealthy corporate investors seems unclear, if the government is seeking to incentivise trees being planted (regardless of their type or wider benefit) then it seems the buoyant industrial forestry market should be enough of a driver without handouts from the public purse.”
The campaign group have urged the Gresham House Forest Fund to work “closely and meaningfully” with the local communities about their plans for the Griffin estate, as well as what benefits from their ownership will be shared with the local people.
Dr Doble said: “It's time for a serious conversation about who owns Scotland's forests and who stands to benefit.
“We cannot allow opaque transactions such as this to keep occurring, when there is little oversight over which entities are buying large parts of Scotland and who actually benefits from that ownership.”
He added that the Land Reform Bill, which is currently in Parliament, will provide some transparency over sales such as this and potentially allow for the breaking up of an estate such as Griffin into smaller parcels.
However, he stated that there should be public oversight over who the end purchaser is.
“Ownership of land by pension funds from around the UK and offshore firms in the Cayman Islands will not mean land is owned to meet public priorities, local community needs or local economic development,” Dr Doble said.
“It will be based on maximising profit and extracting that profit to shareholders. Scotland's land and its people are our most precious resources. They both deserve better land ownership than that.”
