A Vote of Confidence in the Pines
Two Major Timberland Deals Show Why Global Capital Keeps Betting on the Working Forests of the U.S. South
Summer 2026
By John Casey
In the span of six months, two of the largest timberland transactions in years reshaped forest ownership in the U.S. South — and both carry the same message: investors are betting on working forests. In January, Rayonier and Potlatch Deltic closed an $8.2 billion all-stock “merger of equals,” combining two publicly traded timberland REITs into one company that owns more than 4 million acres across 11 states, operates six sawmills and a plywood mill, and will run from a new headquarters in Atlanta.
Two months later, London-based Gresham House announced it would acquire a majority interest in Mississippi’s Molpus Woodlands Group, forming one of the world’s three largest timberland investment managers— roughly $8 billion in forestry assets, much of it Southern pine.
Two very different deals, one shared signal: capital is moving toward timberland, not away from it. The headlines are national, but the story lands closest in Georgia, where working forests anchor rural economies in nearly every county — and where rising investor interest is a vote of confidence in the land, the markets and the people who manage them.
Two Stories, Not One
The first thing to understand, said Brooks Mendell of Atlanta-based Forisk Consulting, is that there are really two consolidations happening at once— and they shouldn’t be lumped together.
“It’s helpful to separate the consolidation in the REIT industry from the TIMOs, because there are two different things going on,” Mendell said. TheREITs (real estate investment trusts) “are operating more like traditional corporations. They have balance sheets, they own wood-using mills, and they’re trying to get the proper scale to satisfy their dividend payments.”
Two months later, London-based Gresham House announced it would acquire a majority interest in Mississippi’s Molpus Woodlands Group, forming one of the world’s three largest timberland investment managers— roughly $8 billion in forestry assets, much of it Southern pine.
Two very different deals, one shared signal: capital is moving toward timberland, not away from it. The headlines are national, but the story lands closest in Georgia, where working forests anchor rural economies in nearly every county — and where rising investor interest is a vote of confidence in the land, the markets and the people who manage them.
Two Stories, Not One
The first thing to understand, said Brooks Mendell of Atlanta-based Forisk Consulting, is that there are really two consolidations happening at once— and they shouldn’t be lumped together.
“It’s helpful to separate the consolidation in the REIT industry from the TIMOs, because there are two different things going on,” Mendell said. TheREITs (real estate investment trusts) “are operating more like traditional corporations. They have balance sheets, they own wood-using mills, and they’re trying to get the proper scale to satisfy their dividend payments.”
"Timberland got valued almost to perfection. There were no gaps in performance among the TIMOs — and so no reason to have a bunch of TIMOs.”— Pete Stewart, Founder, ResourceWise
With Rayonier and Potlatch Deltic joined, “we’re down to two public timberland REITs becoming one — these are the last two standing.” The combined firm pairs a pure-play timber portfolio with manufacturing, retiring debt and gaining scale.
The TIMOs — timberland investment management organizations such as Molpus — are a different animal. “They don’t really own their assets,” Mendell said.
“They’re like asset managers, and they’re getting pressured on fees. Markets are tougher.” Combining lets them spread experienced teams across more land. Andit’s no bolt from the blue: “This is a story that comes up every few years. It’s not a new story.”
The Long Squeeze
If consolidation isn’t new, why now? PeteStewart, founder of forest-products analytics firm ResourceWise, traces the arc back two decades. “Consolidation in this industry broadly is not new,” he said. “It started with the manufacturers in the early 2000s, then moved to timber landowners, service providers, loggers.” An industry that once counted hundreds of mills and operators has thinned out as pricing grew more transparent and the biggest, best players bought up the rest. Underneath it all is a problem the industry created by being good at its job.
“We got so good at growing trees over the last 25 years that there’s an oversupply, ”Stewart said. “We’re growing 25 to 30% more trees than we need every year.” The result is a long grind on price: “Prices have been down to flat for 10 years — on a nominal basis, lower than they were 30 years ago.”“Timberland got valued almost to perfection,” Steward said. “There. were no gaps in performance among the TIMOs — and so no reason to have a bunch of TIMOs.
”The asset itself became extraordinarily well understood. With managers competing for the same capital and the same well-mapped acres, margins compress.
The TIMOs — timberland investment management organizations such as Molpus — are a different animal. “They don’t really own their assets,” Mendell said.
“They’re like asset managers, and they’re getting pressured on fees. Markets are tougher.” Combining lets them spread experienced teams across more land. Andit’s no bolt from the blue: “This is a story that comes up every few years. It’s not a new story.”
The Long Squeeze
If consolidation isn’t new, why now? PeteStewart, founder of forest-products analytics firm ResourceWise, traces the arc back two decades. “Consolidation in this industry broadly is not new,” he said. “It started with the manufacturers in the early 2000s, then moved to timber landowners, service providers, loggers.” An industry that once counted hundreds of mills and operators has thinned out as pricing grew more transparent and the biggest, best players bought up the rest. Underneath it all is a problem the industry created by being good at its job.
“We got so good at growing trees over the last 25 years that there’s an oversupply, ”Stewart said. “We’re growing 25 to 30% more trees than we need every year.” The result is a long grind on price: “Prices have been down to flat for 10 years — on a nominal basis, lower than they were 30 years ago.”“Timberland got valued almost to perfection,” Steward said. “There. were no gaps in performance among the TIMOs — and so no reason to have a bunch of TIMOs.
”The asset itself became extraordinarily well understood. With managers competing for the same capital and the same well-mapped acres, margins compress.
“They squeeze and squeeze,” Stewart said, “and folks consolidate. It’s almost that simple. ”Two outside pressures sharpen the point. Mill closures — especially in the Southeast — kept wood demand flat even as standing timber climbed; strong mills reinvested and grew, weaker ones sold or closed. And global competition expanded, as Brazil and China built pulp and paper capacity over the past 15 years, holding down prices worldwide and squeezing producers, who then squeeze what they pay for raw material.
Where the Money Comes From Now
“We don’t see capital leaving the timberland asset class,” Mendell said. “It’s part of the reason values continue to rise.” The cause is scale — just not the kind most people picture. “Timberland isn’t that big of an asset class. It’s the smallest sliver of the investment world. There are more people trying to climb into that slice than there are acres to satisfy them.
”Data collected twice a year by Timber-Link, an Atlanta-based independent advisor to timberland investors, puts numbers to it. Across the 26 TIMOs it surveys — most of the major names — global timberland assets under management total roughly$66 billion, with the U.S. South the largest region at about 37%, or some $24 billion in market value. But the composition of that capital has shifted in ways that would surprise an investor of 20 years ago.
The clearest change is who the money belongs to. Two decades ago, U.S. investors dominated institutional timber. Today, non-U.S. capital — led by European institutions, with flows from Asia, the Middle East, Canada and South America — has pulled well ahead, over-taking U.S. capital around 2021 and widening the gap since. Two other shifts matter: “dry powder,” capital committed but not yet invested, sits near a record at roughly $9 billion; and total acres under management have declined over the past decade even as values climbed — the competition is for a finite resource, no tan expanding one.
The European tilt is the part Georgia readers ask about most. “We’ve had European interest in U.S. timberlands fora long time,” Mendell said. “Even here in Georgia, we’ve had German investors going back 50-plus years.” What’s changed is scale and persistence — “European capital coming into not only timberland acres but mills, facilities and businesses.” Many such investors care about non-timber attributes like carbon, which supports land values even when timber returns are thin. The Gresham House–Molpus deal is that pattern in miniature: British capital buying control of a Mississippi manager, with carbon and reforestation layered on top of the timber.
Stewart frames it as a change in the “value stack.” “Ten years ago, you made 95% of your revenue from the trees,” he said. “That’s changed dramatically —there’s carbon, conservation easements, higher-and-better-use.” The best-looking returns now often come less from timber than from what the land can become —solar, data centers, homesites — though those complement the working forest rather than replace it. The catch: newer streams like carbon “haven’t taken off in a way that supplants the historic revenue from trees.” For all the new labels, the business in the Southern pine belt is what it always was — commercial forestry.
What It Means for Georgia
The word “merger” understandably makes landowners nervous about market power. Mendell’s advice is to look local— very local. “In forestry, it’s all about who owns the acres in the local market,” he said. “Even a massive company, if its acres are spread out, doesn’t really have market power — you can only influence the hundred miles around your property.” The recent deals change little here: no single company controls a large share of any Georgia local market, so private owners aren’t squeezed out. His rule of thumb for any merger headline: “Did the two largest landowners in my area just become one?” In most of Georgia, no.
The more meaningful signal is how the big owners manage the dirt. Forisk’s silviculture surveys, tracking 35 to 40 million acres of mostly large ownerships, show a steady move toward fewer, higher-quality trees. “Over the past six to 10 years we’ve gone from about 600 trees per acre to below 500. Most people are in the 400s now,” Mendell said — and family landowners have followed. Some growers, especially toward the coast and into South Carolina, have pushed into the 360-to-380 range on ground that recently carried 580.
The point of it all, in Georgia, is saw timber. “The goal in a place like Georgia is to grow as much saw timber as you can, because those are our best markets,” Mendell said. The state’s pulpwood markets are among the strongest in the South, but the value is in the bigger logs — and today’s planting decisions are 15- and 20-year bets on where those markets will be.
Acreage matters, too: Georgia and Florida are the only Southern states to lose net forested acres over the past decade — Georgia’s decline driven partly by Hurricane Michael and land shifting to other uses. Every acre that leaves forestry is one that won’t feed a mill in 2045.
Stewart is blunt about the stakes.Closures and consolidation will continue, he said, and everyone who depends on the supply chain — landowners, loggers, mill workers, the communities around them — will have to adapt. “If you want to stay in this business, you’ve got to think differently about how you grow and harvest trees,” and where revenue comes from. Not comfortable to hear —but candor about the headwinds is what lets the industry get ahead of them.
And on the measure that matters most— position — Georgia comes out ahead. “Georgia’s awfully well positioned com-pared to some other states,” Mendell said. “It is good to be in Georgia.” Deep markets, productive ground and a forestry community working on solutions give the state a cushion much of the country lacks. The owners who weather the next decade best will treat consolidation not as a threat to wait out but as a signal to read — watching the local market, growing the most valuable trees their land will carry, and keeping an eye on where the capital, and the wood, are headed.■
John Casey is a strategic communications and public affairs professional advising clients across the nation. In his downtime, John can be found hunting and fishing at his home on his family’s centennial farm in Northwest Georgia.
Where the Money Comes From Now
“We don’t see capital leaving the timberland asset class,” Mendell said. “It’s part of the reason values continue to rise.” The cause is scale — just not the kind most people picture. “Timberland isn’t that big of an asset class. It’s the smallest sliver of the investment world. There are more people trying to climb into that slice than there are acres to satisfy them.
”Data collected twice a year by Timber-Link, an Atlanta-based independent advisor to timberland investors, puts numbers to it. Across the 26 TIMOs it surveys — most of the major names — global timberland assets under management total roughly$66 billion, with the U.S. South the largest region at about 37%, or some $24 billion in market value. But the composition of that capital has shifted in ways that would surprise an investor of 20 years ago.
The clearest change is who the money belongs to. Two decades ago, U.S. investors dominated institutional timber. Today, non-U.S. capital — led by European institutions, with flows from Asia, the Middle East, Canada and South America — has pulled well ahead, over-taking U.S. capital around 2021 and widening the gap since. Two other shifts matter: “dry powder,” capital committed but not yet invested, sits near a record at roughly $9 billion; and total acres under management have declined over the past decade even as values climbed — the competition is for a finite resource, no tan expanding one.
The European tilt is the part Georgia readers ask about most. “We’ve had European interest in U.S. timberlands fora long time,” Mendell said. “Even here in Georgia, we’ve had German investors going back 50-plus years.” What’s changed is scale and persistence — “European capital coming into not only timberland acres but mills, facilities and businesses.” Many such investors care about non-timber attributes like carbon, which supports land values even when timber returns are thin. The Gresham House–Molpus deal is that pattern in miniature: British capital buying control of a Mississippi manager, with carbon and reforestation layered on top of the timber.
Stewart frames it as a change in the “value stack.” “Ten years ago, you made 95% of your revenue from the trees,” he said. “That’s changed dramatically —there’s carbon, conservation easements, higher-and-better-use.” The best-looking returns now often come less from timber than from what the land can become —solar, data centers, homesites — though those complement the working forest rather than replace it. The catch: newer streams like carbon “haven’t taken off in a way that supplants the historic revenue from trees.” For all the new labels, the business in the Southern pine belt is what it always was — commercial forestry.
What It Means for Georgia
The word “merger” understandably makes landowners nervous about market power. Mendell’s advice is to look local— very local. “In forestry, it’s all about who owns the acres in the local market,” he said. “Even a massive company, if its acres are spread out, doesn’t really have market power — you can only influence the hundred miles around your property.” The recent deals change little here: no single company controls a large share of any Georgia local market, so private owners aren’t squeezed out. His rule of thumb for any merger headline: “Did the two largest landowners in my area just become one?” In most of Georgia, no.
The more meaningful signal is how the big owners manage the dirt. Forisk’s silviculture surveys, tracking 35 to 40 million acres of mostly large ownerships, show a steady move toward fewer, higher-quality trees. “Over the past six to 10 years we’ve gone from about 600 trees per acre to below 500. Most people are in the 400s now,” Mendell said — and family landowners have followed. Some growers, especially toward the coast and into South Carolina, have pushed into the 360-to-380 range on ground that recently carried 580.
The point of it all, in Georgia, is saw timber. “The goal in a place like Georgia is to grow as much saw timber as you can, because those are our best markets,” Mendell said. The state’s pulpwood markets are among the strongest in the South, but the value is in the bigger logs — and today’s planting decisions are 15- and 20-year bets on where those markets will be.
Acreage matters, too: Georgia and Florida are the only Southern states to lose net forested acres over the past decade — Georgia’s decline driven partly by Hurricane Michael and land shifting to other uses. Every acre that leaves forestry is one that won’t feed a mill in 2045.
Stewart is blunt about the stakes.Closures and consolidation will continue, he said, and everyone who depends on the supply chain — landowners, loggers, mill workers, the communities around them — will have to adapt. “If you want to stay in this business, you’ve got to think differently about how you grow and harvest trees,” and where revenue comes from. Not comfortable to hear —but candor about the headwinds is what lets the industry get ahead of them.
And on the measure that matters most— position — Georgia comes out ahead. “Georgia’s awfully well positioned com-pared to some other states,” Mendell said. “It is good to be in Georgia.” Deep markets, productive ground and a forestry community working on solutions give the state a cushion much of the country lacks. The owners who weather the next decade best will treat consolidation not as a threat to wait out but as a signal to read — watching the local market, growing the most valuable trees their land will carry, and keeping an eye on where the capital, and the wood, are headed.■
John Casey is a strategic communications and public affairs professional advising clients across the nation. In his downtime, John can be found hunting and fishing at his home on his family’s centennial farm in Northwest Georgia.
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