A new trend: Investing in Agriculture
Investing in Agriculture has become a trend, but investment approaches can greatly differ and have to be fully understood. Aquila Capital Green Assets buys and operates farms. In this Opalesque FIVE Minutes, CEO Detlef Schoen explains his approach and gives an overview on the best agriculture investment opportunities from a risk-return perspective.
Aquila aims to structure investment vehicles that rely not only on food commodity production and sales to generate returns, but also capture and enhance the value of the truly "underlying" asset, i.e. farm land, through actually buying and operating farms.
Sustainability through focus on pastoral farming
The company's aim is to increase productivity on a sustainable basis, preferably in pastoral farming regimes where there is no competition between humans and animals for scarce arable land, and with focus on lowest-cost locations such as New Zealand or Brazil.
Detlef Schoen began his career with Cargill after completing a degree in agronomics. He held a range of positions at the firm, including Managing Director of the European Commodities Merchandizing Division. As entrepreneur, he created, ran and sold his own business, before returning to global agribusiness as Manager of International Grains for NIDERA in Rotterdam. Also in his personal live Detlef is dedicated to farming and has been running his own farm "Hof Peeneland" since 1991.
About Aquila Capital
Founded in 2001, the Aquila Group is one of Germany's leading independent Alternative Investment firms with currently EUR 2.1bn assets under management. Aquila operates in a flexible matrix structure with over 50 investment specialists in structuring, fund management and operations.
Aquila's agriculture activities accommodate the recent "corporatization" of farming, with institutional investors gradually turning agriculture into an "investable" asset class -- granting access to the food commodity space beyond the speculation in highly volatile derivatives.
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A new trend: Investing in Agriculture
Investing in Agriculture has become a trend, but investment approaches can greatly differ and have to be fully understood. Aquila Capital Green Assets buys and operates farms. In this Opalesque FIVE Minutes, CEO Detlef Schoen explains his approach and gives an overview on the best agriculture investment opportunities from a risk-return perspective.
Aquila aims to structure investment vehicles that rely not only on food commodity production and sales to generate returns, but also
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