SLM Partners is an impact investor that acquires and manages rural land in several parts of the world, implementing regenerative agriculture, ecological farming and sustainable forestry systems, delivering both financial returns and environmental benefits.15
SLM invests in farm and forestry land on behalf of pension funds, family offices and insurance companies. SLM acquires and, with the help of local partners, transforms and manages agricultural and forestry land through its offices in the UK, USA and Australia. Through its investments, it aims to regenerate land, while increasing economic returns for its investors.
SLM raised AU$105 million for their first fund, SLM Australia Livestock Fund (AU$75 million in equity from Danish pension funds and AU$30 million in debt), acquiring over 480,000 hectare grazing land in Australia for sustainable beef production.16 In 2018, SLM created the SLM Silver Fund, which invests in sustainable forestry in Ireland, transforming existing plantations into “Continuous Cover Forestry” to improve biodiversity as well as making the plantation more disease and windfall resistant.17 The fund has backing from Irish investors, the European Investment Bank and other European institutional investors.18 SLM is planning on expanding its ownership of over 12,140 hectares of farmland to scale up regenerative organic farming in the US, specialising in organic grains.19
15 ‘ ‘ImpactAssets 50: SLM Partners’. n.d. Impact Assets. http://impactassets.org/ia50_new/fund.php?id=a014400000jQnuBAAS.
16 ‘ ‘Australian Grassfed Beef’. n.d. SLM. https://slmpartners.com/activities/australian-grassfed-beef.
17 ‘Irish Forestry – a Sustainable Irish Forestry Fund’. n.d. SLM. https://slmpartners.com/activities/irish-forestry.
18 ‘Irish Forestry – a Sustainable Irish Forestry Fund’. n.d. SLM. https://slmpartners.com/activities/irish-forestry.
19 ‘US Organic Farmland’. n.d. SLM. https://slmpartners.com/activities/us-organic-farmland.