Press Release: David Gardner appointed Investment Director, Forestry

Gresham House appoints David Gardner as Investment Director, Forestry to oversee international expansion

1 June 2020, London

Gresham House, the specialist alternative asset manager, announces today the appointment of David Gardner as Investment Director within its Forestry division, responsible primarily for leading the international expansion of the business. David will report into Managing Director, Forestry, Olly Hughes.

Gresham House is the UK’s largest commercial forestry manager, harvesting approximately 10% of the UK’s softwood annually. Managing approximately 135,000 hectares, worth in excess of £1.3 billion, the company made its first foray into the international markets with the management of a 4,074-hectare forestry portfolio in Ireland, appointed by AXA Investment Managers in May 2019.

David will also support the deployment and asset management of the domestic investment portfolio.

With more than 30 years’ experience in the sector, he is a specialist in international forestry investing and asset management with a background in developing and managing forestry and forest carbon asset-backed portfolios.

He joins from Global Forest Partners LP, the US-based timberland investment management organisation, where he was a Partner and Director of Investments for Asia for 10 years. Prior to this, he held senior roles at Pӧyry Management Consulting, in the Forest Industry division based in both Malaysia and Singapore, at Sappi Forests in South Africa, and started his career with the Economic Forestry Group in the UK.

In 2019, more than 4.1 million trees were planted by the Gresham House forestry division in UKWAS certified forests and approximately 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ were captured, bringing total carbon storage across the portfolio to over 34 million tonnes.

Olly Hughes, Managing Director, Forestry at Gresham House commented:

“As a long term, diversifying, stable asset class, forestry is one of the most exciting areas of growth among our Real Assets portfolio. We are delighted to welcome David, who brings an incredible wealth of experience from international forestry investing, particularly as we plan to continue expanding this division into new markets.”

For further information, please contact:

Houston PR
Alexander Clelland / Anushka Mathew
gh@houston.co.uk
+44 (0)20 3701 7660