Timber as an Institutional Investment

Abstract

From 1997 through the middle of 2005, the Harvard Management Company, one of the most respected institutional investors in the world, built a timberland portfolio valued at over $2 billion. In the summer of 2005, Harvard announced the sale of a significant portion of this portfolio to Hancock Timber Resource Group, an institutional investor. Given significant commitments to this asset class by investors like Harvard, institutional investors have expressed increasing interest in and questions about, this asset class. What drives institutional investor interest in this asset class? To answer that question, this article will discuss four unique attributes of timber investments. These are the economics of timber, characteristics of timber returns, the impact of including timber in a diversified portfolio, and some of the risks associated with such an investment.