Britain | Investing in forests

Where money grows on trees

Wealthy investors are branching out into an evergreen new asset class

GREEN-FINGERED folk who invested in British forests over the past decade did better, on average, than those who planted their cash in more obvious places, such as stocks and bonds. According to the IPD UK Annual Forestry Index, a sample of 133 commercial forests in Britain, forests returned 18.4% last year and have averaged a staggering 21% a year since 2010, easily outgrowing the FTSE 100 share index (which returned an average of 7.7%) and commercial property (which made 10.9%).

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Where money grows on trees”

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