Land Fund looks to raise €500M in 5 years

The Portuguese Land Fund is looking to attract half a billion euros over the next five years by offering investors a return of around 10% to raise enough funds to buy plots of land.

“The goal is to raise €500 million, mostly from international investors, over the next five years to buy tracts of land of up to 200,000 m2 all over the country, particularly in unpopulated areas”, said the fund’s spokesperson João Raimundo in an interview with the news agency Lusa.
“We are raising investment, and by the end of the year we hope to be able to raise an adequate amount to begin buying tracts.”
The instrument is referred to as the first Portuguese real estate investment fund for sustainability. Authorised by the Portuguese stock market commission CMVM in February, it expects to provide a return of 10% over the fund’s 15 year life and renewable for five year periods.
Among the fund’s promoters is the entrepreneur Filipe de Boton as well as Fernando Esmeraldo (ex-president of the ECS fund), Ângela Lucas (researcher at Lisbon’s Catholic University in the area of sustainability), João Lopes Raimundo (a manager involved in various venture capital deals), and Carlos Trindade (a specialist in agroforestry management).
The task is to acquire and responsibly manage tracts of land, particularly abandoned land because they were damaged by fires or have poor soil, but also carbon capture as well as regenerating regions and attracting biodiversity.
This includes “reforesting with native species that are more adapted to drought and more resilient to fires, restoring ecosystems or carbon capture”, contributing to reducing the carbon footprint of entities and companies investing in the fund”, said Angela Lucas adding that Land has a set a target for fixing around 750,000 tonnes of carbon per year.
Portugal has set a carbon neutral target for 2045, which means that carbon dioxide has to be offset, more specifically by capturing and storing carbon.