We assisted Häggblom & Partners Oy, a financial advisory firm, when it advised UB Fund Management Company Ltd, a subsidiary of United Bankers Plc, in a transaction in which United Bankers’ forest funds entered into an agreement on the sale and purchase of forest real estate and a long-term partnership with Finnish forestry group UPM. In the sale and purchase, UPM sold more than 21,000 hectares of forest mainly in the Kainuu region in Finland to two forest funds managed by UB Fund Management Company. The funds are Erikoissijoitusrahasto UB Metsä and UB Nordic Forest Fund III Ky. The sale and purchase is one of the largest of its kind in Finland over the past ten years. It increases the total area of the forest estates owned by United Bankers’ funds to more than 110,000 hectares.
In the long-term partnership agreement, United Bankers undertakes to sell a significant amount of timber harvested from its forests to UPM every year, and UPM undertakes to manage the forest assets of United Bankers. The agreement aims at supporting the profitable growth of the UB forest funds and to improve the predictability of their operations through a long-term timber sales agreement.
United Bankers Plc is a Finnish investment group established in 1986. It engages in asset management, brokerage, capital markets services and fund management. Within asset management, the company specialises in investments in real assets. United Bankers is mainly owned by its key personnel. The group has 138 employees and 32 agents (6/2018). In 2017, its turnover was approximately EUR 25.0 million and its operating profit was approximately EUR 3.6 million. The group administers a total of approximately EUR 2.9 billion in assets (6/2018). United Bankers has been listed on the First North Finland market since November 2014.
With 514,000 hectares of forest, UPM is one of Finland’s largest forest owners. UPM also owns 75,000 hectares of forest in the United States and 255,000 hectares of plantations in Uruguay.
