UPDATED: CalSTRS makes $250m investment to timber
The $188.7 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System has committed $250 million to Twin Creeks Timber, a joint venture launched in 2015 by Silver Creek Capital Management to invest in timber assets alongside a timberland operator.
“We believe this is a unique opportunity to invest alongside like-minded institutional investors in an existing portfolio of timber assets,” said Michelle Mussuto, CalSTRS’ spokeswoman, in an email.
The Twin Creeks Timber portfolio's current valuation is more than $1 billion.
Recently, Twin Creeks acquired 121,000 acres of timberland to its portfolio. Twin Creeks purchased 100,000 acres located in the Southern United States from Weyerhaeuser Co. and receive a contribution of 21,000 acres located in the Pacific Northwest from Green Diamond Resource Co. Through the addition of these timber assets, Twin Creeks will increase its Southern portfolio to 360,000 acres and add the Pacific Northwest to its portfolio. The timberland transactions are expected to close by year end.
In conjunction with these timberland transactions, Twin Creeks has repurchased Weyerhaeuser’s equity interest in the joint venture and will replace Weyerhaeuser as the joint venture’s timberland manager with a new manager effective January 1, 2018. Green Diamond will become a new equity partner in Twin Creeks and Green Diamond Management Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Green Diamond, will become manager of Twin Creeks’ timber assets portfolio. Twin Creeks’ timberland will continue to be certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Standard®, the world’s largest forest certification system.
