Call for Scottish National Investment Bank to rethink their investment in Gresham House fund

6 October 2025

Recent research has shed further light on the Scottish National Investment Bank’s (SNIB) investment with Gresham House, the international asset management group who invest heavily in forestry. Gresham House’s recent perplexing land transactions raises several key questions for those interested in land reform and transparency over public expenditure.

Who are the Scottish National Investment Bank?

SNIB identify themselves as ‘a development investment bank, established and funded by Scottish Ministers on behalf of the people of Scotland…. (they) invest where the private sector is not providing sufficient investment to businesses or projects that support the development of a country’s economy’.

This is a laudable intention and makes SNIB’s investment with Gresham House more confusing. Gresham House are designed to invest in areas where they see the potential for significant returns for their fund partners, and ultimately their shareholders, not in projects which are lacking private investment, and which support the development of the Scottish economy.

The forestry sector is an important part of the Scottish economy. We need to see a strengthened and diversified forestry sector which is producing high quality timber, with strong local supply chains supporting increased rural jobs and housing. Asset management ownership of Scotland’s forests creates a risk these benefits will be missed if profit margins are the overriding driver for decision making. If public money is invested there should be tangible benefits for the local environment and local people, otherwise it is a poor use of public funds.

Scotland’s second largest private landowner largely unimpacted by the Land Reform Bill

The research conducted by forestry and land ownership analyst, Andy Wightman, has confirmed that Gresham House, through the partnerships that they control, are now Scotland’s second largest private landowner, owning 73,553 hectares of Scotland.

Despite this, Gresham House will be largely unimpacted by the current Land Reform Bill as only 16% of that hectarage is in holdings over 1000ha and therefore deemed to be a large landholding. This severely limits the ability to assess the impact of their significant nationwide holdings and what their ownership means for local rural development.

Failing to tackle the concentration of landownership on a national scale is a huge, missed opportunity in the current Bill. There could have been a means of assessing buyers of Scottish land through a Public Interest Test. This has not happened, and Gresham House’s ownership provides a clear example of why this was so needed.

The fact that Scotland’s second largest private landowner is an asset management corporation, with complex, offshore ownership, is bad enough*. But for one of that landowner’s investment funds to be directly funded by the Scottish Government through SNIB seems contradictory at best considering the Scottish Government’s commitment to land reform.

Scottish taxpayers’ money is funding Gresham House land acquisitions

The Scottish National Investment Bank invested £50,000,000 in the Gresham House Forest Growth and Sustainability LP (GHFGS), which has acquired 45 landholdings across Scotland since 2021, totalling 11,199 ha of land. At the same time a total of £3.4 million of public funds has been given to GHFGS in capital grants up until July 2025.

As Andy Wightman has identified, SNIB seeks to make 3-4% return on capital over the medium term, yet the Scottish Minister’s net return from their investment into the GHFGS, will be significantly impacted by the fact that they will have paid £11.2 million to the Fund by 2031 in forestry grants.

This, alongside the impact of SNIB’s investment on Scottish Government land reform and community wealth building policies, raises serious questions as to the merits of SNIB’s investment in Gresham House.

Gresham House’s seemingly bizarre commercial decisions

It is unclear why Gresham House have bought a 579ha hill farm for over £12 million, making it £21,070 per ha. An eyewatering sum compared to the already inflated prices for agricultural land, which at their peak in recent years were £15,152 per ha for agricultural land, including prime arable, and £13,590 per ha for hill land for tree planting.

Andy’s research has also uncovered that GHFGS have bought a 150-year lease on the 715ha Snar Farm in Lanarkshire for £14,820,009.609. This is a staggering figure for a lease. Gresham House, and other private investors in land, have frequently focused on the purchase of land to gain a capital asset. However, purchasing such an expensive lease means that Gresham House must be assuming that they will see a net profit (i.e. over £14 million plus operating costs) from forestry products and carbon credits from the 715ha of Snar Farm.

These kinds of bizarre transactions are troubling for those of us interested in the economically, socially and environmentally progressive use of Scottish land. Gresham House seem to be speculating on Scottish land, partially funded by Scottish taxpayers’ money. Land speculation makes it more expense for communities and local people to buy land and warps an already inflated land market.

This raises some troubling questions. What do Gresham House know that could warrant such inflated land and lease values? What impact do transactions like this have on the land market? Should these apparently speculative and seemingly bizarre land transactions be supported by the public money that SNIB has invested?

Time for SNIB to rethink their investment in Gresham House?

The rationale for SNIB investing in Gresham House was challenged when it was announced 4 years ago, and it seems even more confusing now because Gresham House have used their investments to amass Scottish landholdings.

SNIB could be using its capital to deliver local economic development, as many of us in the community sector believe SNIB should be prioritising. Think of what £50 million could achieve if it were seed funding community wealth building projects such as community energy, underwriting community-led housing or supporting small and medium sized businesses across Scotland. An investment such as this would increase the number of secure local jobs, keep schools open, help address the housing crisis, and strengthen resilient local economies.

We would welcome a conversation with Gresham House about how their increasing ownership of Scottish land is supporting local rural development and meeting the Scottish Land Commission’s Land Rights and Responsibilities Protocols. It would be valuable to learn how Gresham House could maximise their opportunity to deliver real benefits for the people in the local areas they are operating in and not just for their fund partners and shareholders.

If this information isn’t publicly available, or their contribution to local rural development is not significant enough, it might be time for SNIB to reconsider their investment in Gresham House.

As it stands it hardly seems wise use of taxpayer’s money and contradicts several key Scottish Government policies. SNIB could instead redirect that investment to community-led projects which delivers local rural development across the country.

This blog is based on the following research conducted by Andy Wightman.

Gresham House is now Scotland’s 2nd largest landowner – Land Matters
The £12 million farm sale and the £14 million lease – Land Matters
Griffin Forestry Estate Sold for £145 million – Land Matters

*Gresham House have acknowledged that transparency around their landholdings has been an issue and seek to help remedy this by publishing an interactive map detailing their landholdings as soon as possible.

For more information, please contact Dr Josh Doble