243: The Quiet Fortune in Timberland
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Stitcher | Spotify
Can trees really grow your wealth? In this episode, Mike talks with John Brenard, Founder and Managing Director of Southview Timberland Investments, about how timberland and farmland offer strong returns, steady cash flow, and natural inflation protection. John explains why this overlooked asset class is gaining traction with investors who want something real, stable, and sustainable.
In this episode, we chat about…
From Wealth Management to Timberland: How John turned a family land purchase into a thriving investment strategy.
Why Timberland Works: A proven inflation hedge that’s uncorrelated to the stock market.
The Power of the Southeast: Why this region now leads global timber production.
More Than Just Trees: Multiple income streams from harvesting, farmland leasing, and recreational use.
Sustainable by Nature: How responsible forestry adds both environmental and financial value.
Investor Access: How Southview’s five-year fund makes timberland investing accessible through Schwab.
Tariffs and Opportunity: How U.S. trade policies are fueling domestic timber growth.
Key Takeaways:
Timberland is a true alternative asset, it’s uncorrelated to traditional markets and historically stable.
The Southeast U.S. is now the global timber powerhouse, offering strong mill infrastructure and high demand.
Investors can access institutional-quality deals through Southview without the massive minimums of traditional TIMOs.
Timberland offers multiple income channels, from harvest revenue to farmland and recreational leases.
Sustainability drives returns, good forestry practices directly increase land value and resale potential.
Southview’s fund model is transparent and investor-friendly, offering regular reporting, on-site visits, and digital onboarding.
New trade and tariff policies are strengthening American timber markets, creating additional upside for domestic investors.
Resources from John
LinkedIn | Southview Timberland Investments | Email
Resources from Mike and Nichole
+ Read the transcript
Mike: Hey, everybody! Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast. Today, we have John Brenard. He's the founder and Managing Director of Southview Timberland Investments. Over the past 15 years, he's gathered extensive experience in wealth management, alternative investments, and he's found a niche that we're going to talk about at Southview, he focuses on timberland and agricultural investments in the Southeast US. How are you doing, John?
John: Hey Mike. I'm doing very well. It's a pleasure to be here and looking forward to diving into this asset class, which I'm sure a lot of your users have, maybe at the most, a baseline knowledge of what it is so we can do a deeper dive on what we do. So, yeah.
Mike: You know, a lot of it is, well, I hike through the forest, I do this and I do that, and I see this, is it federal land? You know who owns it? It's amazing how many funds or individual people actually owned, you know, thousands and thousands of acres. John, before we dive in, give us a little bit, brief history of who you are and how you got involved in this type of investment.
John: Yeah, we'll dive into all of that.Where the assets are located, why we like investing in that region. We'll touch on all of that. But yeah, I think it's helpful to give you the origin story of Southview and how this whole business got started. I love telling this story. It's a personal story. Just to back up, like you mentioned, I started my career in more traditional finance, traditional wealth management, and did that for the first decade of my career. Had a successful business doing that, you know, scaled it to over $100 million in assets under management. I had great clients, really loved the business, but I caught the entrepreneurial bug and just wanted to kind of strike out on my own and do something, and build it from the ground up. So I kind of tiptoed into entrepreneurship when I joined a company where I was an investor and I was an early employee in that business, and we built that company and sold it to a publicly traded company. So that was a successful foray into entrepreneurship. So really I built two successful businesses in my career so far. But your listeners are probably wondering where the timberland comes into all of this? That all started in 2008, when my family bought a timberland investment in South Georgia. When I was still building my wealth management business, I would get on that property for recreation. We planted loblolly pine trees on it, for an investment. And I saw basically the way that the asset class worked, and saw almost a full cycle deal in all the years that we managed it. And that's also where I met my business partner, Terry Myers who is a self-made guy. He's been investing in timberland for over 30 years. And when I would get on the property with him, he would take me out and show me other timberland deals. And when I started to have the means, in my wealth management career, and later, during that startup, I started doing My own deals with him. Putting my own money into deals, learning about the asset class firsthand. I said pretty early on, "Hey Terry, when the time is right, we should put together an offering to present this strategy to a broader set of investors." 'Cause it's hard to get direct access to it the way that we do it. We can talk about the other vehicles that are available to get exposure to timberland, but that's where we are today. About two years ago, we launched the business to offer this strategy to more investors and we're off to the races.
Mike: And you know, it's important that we have options. A lot of our listeners are high paid employees. Some of them are founders, and they're looking there and say, "You know what? I like my lifestyle. I'm making a lot of money, but I lose a million. I've gained a million. Is that something I can trust when I retire?" Can I have the same type of lifestyle when I retire? Especially as they have kids. So how does that approach fit their needs, and that diversification process?
John: Yeah, so in all of my time in wealth management working for firms that all of your viewers and listeners would recognize, I can't remember one time when a timberland fund came across my desk. It wasn't an option for them and it's a shame because the large endowments, the institutions, you know, they have exposure to it. They have direct exposure to the asset class and they've been doing it for decades, 'cause they recognize that it's a great ballast for the portfolio. It's very stable. It's a great inflation hedge. It's uncorrelated to the stock market. The returns that we generate are not tied to corporate earnings, right? It's tied to biological growth and the steady appreciation of land value. And so it's a great compliment to those traditional investments. I'm not saying investors shouldn't have exposure to the stock market or the bond market or other alternatives, but a 3% to 5% exposure to timberland in a portfolio helps dramatically with the risk adjusted returns. And there have been studies done with real assets being added to a portfolio and what it does for the risk adjusted returns studies done by brighter minds than me. But thankfully I get to use those studies in what we talk about on a day-to-day basis with investors. So it's a proven great inflation hedge, something that's uncorrelated and I thought I just mentioned here too. JP Morgan bought a timberland investment group called Campbell Global about two years ago because they realized that natural capital real assets belonged in their investors' portfolio. They're now advocating a 3% to 5% exposure to their private bank clients to timberland. And so JP Morgan's on board. I feel like they do a pretty good job with investing so we feel like we're in the right spot.
Mike: So how does owning land? You know, I've had people on here that just own land and it just sits there. No one's getting any money, there's no dividends, there's no monthly payouts. We're talking about timberland. People are thinking "What does John do?" He just goes out and buys land but you're doing something else. You have all these different avenues, different diversified avenues within the timberland that has income. So tell us a little bit about, you're not just buying a thousand acres of land somewhere.
John: Correct. We're not going to the middle of Texas and buying a thousand acres where there's no timber markets. We're not doing that. I think it's important that I set the table about the region that we're investing in. We're in the Southeast US. Specifically, the areas that we invest in are South Georgia, parts of North Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, and a lot of folks don't really realize the Southeast is the number one lumber producer, timber market. in the world at this point. It surpassed the Pacific Northwest. It's surpassed Canada and so we invest in a region that has very stable markets. There's high demand for the land that we purchase. So these are very productive assets that we're buying. It's when we're buying timberland, we're buying in an area that has a very strong mill infrastructure. And so if we buy a thousand acres of timberland, you have to have a mill close by to turn that into different products and these aren't the mills that people have in mind of you know, a single or couple people operating at them. These are large facilities. These are owned by multinational companies. They've made hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in these mills that produce all of the products that we use on a day-to-day basis. So all the Amazon boxes that show up on your doorstep every other day,those are manufactured in our region, right? The large dimensional saw timber that we build the 1.5 million homes in this country 'cause we need around 1.25 to one and a half million homes built in this country on an annual basis. The lumber that we build all those homes with are produced in our region. So we buy land that is close to the mill infrastructure. The mill is who is actually purchasing the timber that we produce. We simply manage the land, manage the timber, and then when the prices are right, we work with the mills and the loggers for them to take that product off of our land to sell. There's a big ecosystem that's happening in the Southeast that a lot of people don't realize that it's vital to the economy so that's why we invest there.
Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. You know, it's like out here in Arizona, we thin the forest. We do firewise and send off that to the mills. Do you think that you've surpassed the specific Northwest? I'm not gonna get into politics, but you know, is it that you're just growing that quickly or are there some policies that are kind of hedging against that type of an area saying that, "Hey, you know, we need to preserve our force. We don't want this." Are you seeing that around different areas?
John: Yeah. There is some of that going on in the Pacific Northwest. For example, Georgia is the number one forestry state. It's one of the largest employers. It's an extremely important industry to the state of Georgia. So the leadership of that state is not going to impede, right? That industry with a lot of regulations to operate in the way that we need to, whereas the Pacific Northwest, you know, they may have other industries that are supporting the tax base there or what have you employment, right? In the Southeast, these rural jobs are so important and vital to the economy, and so the leadership there understands that and they support the industry and they're gonna actually do what they can to be a catalyst for the industry instead of taking away from it. So not to get into the politics of it, it's just a huge industry in the Southeast and a lot of people depend on it for their livelihood.
Mike: You know, you have some competition out there and someone may see, you know, fund with one of your competitors or another type of thing. What makes the way that you find it in that Southwest, and we talked about a little bit, has to be around mills but how else are you different from your competitors?
John: I'll lay out the different ways that investors can get exposure to investing in timberland. So really the easiest way to do it is there are three publicly traded timber REITs right now. There's Rayonier, Weyerhaeuser, and PotlatchDeltic. So those are publicly traded REITs. You could go to your Fidelity or Schwab account right now and you could buy those today. And they own a portfolio of millions of acres of timberland, right? With that public vehicle though, you get the public market volatility, right? So in the 2008s, in the COVID's, right? Those move with the public markets. So it's not really the uncorrelated benefit that you get by owning the asset directly. That's the easiest way to get exposure to publicly traded REITs. On the other end of the spectrum, there are groups called TIMOs, Timberland Investment Management Organizations. There's a number of them throughout the country and what these groups do is they work with institutions, family offices and they will build you a custom separately managed account. If you have $50 million, $75 million, $100 million to invest, right? Sometimes more. So that's a good way to get exposure to the asset class 'cause they'll build you a diversified portfolio. But extremely high minimums. So where Southview comes in and the Southview Timberland Fund is, you're gonna get that TIMO-like experience at a much lower minimum. The minimum for our fund is $100,000, right? This fund that we're raising is a $50 million fund. So it's a lot more concentrated, right? You get that hands-on approach and how we source properties is from our network. We've been doing this in the region for 30 plus years. We have a deep network of acquisition specialists on our team. We have relationships with the brokers, right? Doesn't mean that we're buying products through brokers, you know, on the listed sites, right? Once it's on the listed sites it's no longer a deal. This asset class is very difficult to invest in if you don't have those relationships. You can't do this from a Bloomberg terminal, right? You have to have boots on the ground and that's what we offer is we have guys that wake up every day. They're looking at deals, they're riding around, talking to landowners, talking to fellow investors, talking to foresters, right? They know the families, the large families that still own property that are the third or fourth generation maybe don't want to own it anymore. And that's where we get our deal flow from. So we can typically get a nice discount on the purchase price compared to the market and simply because we do what we say we're gonna do, we are known as active buyers. If we say we're going to close on a deal, we follow through on that. So that's a huge edge for us in our deal sourcing.
Mike: And you're small enough to be the investors aren't just numbers.
John: Yes.
Mike: And I think that's very important nowadays, as I do funds in different syndications they can contact you. They can get a hold of the founders in a way that you can't, maybe through a REIT or a much larger. And people like that more of a personal touch, don't they?
John: They really do. And we've been onboarded to the Charles Schwab Alternative Investments platform. So if anybody works with Charles Schwab or has a Charles Schwab advisor, we are on that platform. So you can see the Southview Timberland Fund on your statement, but we're really seen as a partner to the financial advisors that we work with. We're a differentiator. It's really you know, something that people are looking for these days is the real assets. Something that's tangible, something that they can put their fingers and toes into.
Mike: Yeah. I agree. Now, you talked about timber harvesting. What else do you do with that land that you generate income from?
John: Yeah, so it's not simply buying a partial of land, planting trees and waiting 25 years to harvest, right? That is a way that some people manage their land. But we're a lot more opportunistic. Although, you know, a $50 million fund for some folks may seem like a large fund, and it is. I mean, I'm not making light of that. But compared to some of these other groups that are managing millions of acres, I'm being serious about that. I'm not just being flippant by saying that. Even with the large teams that they have, they don't have the ability to be as hands-on as we are at our size. And so our intention is really to stay fairly concentrated, stay within the size funds that I'm talking about getting maybe progressively. Larger as time goes on, but staying within this zone that I mentioned in the Southeast, because we can just get our hands on the property to extract as much value. And so the different ways that we do that is, obviously timber harvesting is a big way. We generate returns. We are able to do things like farmland. So if we buy a thousand acres of land. Maybe 300 acres of it is better suited to be in farmland. We may go clean up that property, make the investment to drill a well, irrigate it, and then we'll lease that out to a professional farmer for a nice cash rent and that irrigation that we did improved the land value as well on the resale.
John: We do recreational leases. Recreation is huge. You know, hunting. And people who just want to have an urban retreat. They want to get away from the cities. That's become very big in our area. So we get leases for people to use our land for recreation. We're also seeing a lot of opportunistic land sales, meaning that. Again, if we buy 500 acres, a thousand acres, it might make sense for us to sell 50 or 75 acres to a recreational buyer at a much higher price per acre, which creates additional return for the fund through those opportunistic sales. The population continues to grow in the Southeast. That puts upward pressure on land prices, just more to demand for land. Some of the properties that we currently own in our personal portfolio, we have developments that are bumping up against us that need more land for expansion, and they pay us a much higher price per acre. So we're always looking to be about an hour or two outside of the major cities, still very rural areas. Very good for timberland. We always have that timberland put, right? So we always have the timberland returns, protecting us but as the Southeast continues to grow and the population grows, we're on that path of progress. So the land prices can appreciate with that growth. There are other ways, we generate returns, but if investors book time with me, we can talk about those as well.
Mike: Something that's probably on the forefront of a lot of our listeners' minds is sustainability. It's very important nowadays. How do you take care of the land while generating income and still be a sustainable product?
John: Yeah. So ESG these days seems like it's persona non grata for some people. But sustainability, as that whole movement took off the last decade or so. In timberland, our asset class has always been sustainable. When we harvest a pine plantation within 12 to 18 months after cleaning it up, we're replanting it. And that's not only good stewardship of the land that not only makes it sustainable but that's good for returns as well because when we go to resell that property in three to five years, and the next investors see that there's a good stand of a pine plantation, right? They're willing to pay a premium 'cause we made that investment in that stewardship and it's just good for the next generation too. So, stewardship, good forestry practices, good land management. You mentioned earlier, thinning the forests in Arizona, we do that as well. As the pine plantation becomes more established, we will go out and take out every third row to allow that canopy to expand, to get more production. Just good forest management, good stewardship and sustainability are part of everything we do at Southview. That's our asset, right? We have to take care of it. We have to manage it well 'cause the next investors, they're gonna notice if we didn't take care of it. And we want to get that premium for our product when we go to sell it.
Mike: Let's talk about the fund a little bit. What kind of returns do you aim for? You know, I guarantee none of our listeners right now have ever heard of a timberland fund. You were the first one. You mentioned maybe three to five years. Someone comes in and says, "You know what? Here's $100,000. What do you think I'm going to get and how long is the investment?
John: Yeah. So we wanted to make this very investor friendly, easy to understand the terms of the fund, and very straightforward. It's a five-year fund. Most timberland funds, timberland strategies are much longer than that. They can be 7, 10, 12, up to 15 year long commitments 'cause they're just managing on a longer cycle. They're not as opportunistic as we are. So we're only a five-year fund. During that five-year period from Day 1, with all the ways that I mentioned that we generate income, we're gonna be looking to make distribution, so there's going to be cash flow with this investment as well. We're targeting a 6% to 8% distribution on an annual basis from the fund. So it's not gonna lock your money up for five years and you're not gonna see any returns. We're gonna be looking to return cash flow. Yeah, a $100,000 minimum investment.
Mike: I assume accredited investors.
John: Yeah. It's for accredited investors. So a 6% to 8% dividend distribution is what we're targeting. We are targeting a 12% to 15% IRR total, right? So part of that is cashflow. Part of that is appreciation. We're working with best in class service providers. We're really having you know, set this up to have an institutional feel from the beginning. Quarterly reporting, you know, quarterly updates, and ad hoc, webinars. We do semi-monthly emails with updates, just being very transparent. We welcome site visits as well for any investors who want to come see the land. Investors come and see us and we take them around and show them property. So, our door is always open in that regard.
Mike: And do you use debt or you pay, usually pay in cash?
John: Historically we haven't used a lot of debt. Within the fund, you know, if it helps maybe to, for short-term needs, we can use some debt, but we haven't used leverage. The simple reason for that is we feel like the returns that we're able to generate without debt are favorable. It de-risks the investment for us. Not being beholden to a bank for a debt payment, you know, influencing our decisions. That's just something we haven't done personally and in the fund.
Mike: Yeah. That's good. One of the things that is on everyone's mind right now, I think the word of the year so far is tariffs.
John: Sure.
Mike: And how is that affecting, especially the lumber part, the timber part of your deals.
John: Yeah.
So in August of 2024, before Biden left office, he actually increased the tariffs on Canadian lumber. He increased it by 80%, so it was at 8% and he increased it to I believe it's 14% or 15% tariff. Before Trump got into office, we were already going after Canadian lumber coming over. And it's not that we were doing that to be predatory or to hurt Canadians. The simple reason is people don't realize is, is a lot of Canadian lumber is subsidized by the government. The industry is heavily subsidized, and so they have a huge advantage, when it comes to production and what it costs for them to produce their product. And so to level the playing field with American producers, we've always had some type of tariff on Canadian lumber. Now with Trump coming in, those have increased, right? But at the same time, the Trump administration has also put an executive order in place on March 1st. That we were gonna focus on American timber production. I think, setting the tariffs aside, that's where we should be focused, we have these great natural resources. And I'm not talking about going into protected national forests, right? The news does a good job of saying, "Hey, they're gonna start harvesting national forests." That's not what we're gonna be doing. There may be some cleanup that happens in those, which is just good forest management. We have set up in this country, in the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest, these timber industries, in order for that to make sense from an economic perspective, you have to be close to the mill infrastructure. You have to be 50 to a hundred miles. And so really focusing on those natural resources, here in the US and getting the most out of them, managing them sustainably, I think is the right path forward. It seems like the administration recognizes that. And that's what we're doing today. So, we see all that's happening as a boon for our industry. A boon for American workers in this industry. It's still fairly early days to tell, but we see it as a boon for our industry.
Mike: Yeah. And it seems like the agenda for those policies is to boost what we have, our natural resources and among other things like steel and those other types of industries. But why not put money in American's hands? American workers. I think you, like you said, we will see, but I'm hoping that those types of things will boon. The industries that are based here in the US.
John: We're seeing it already. I mean, just an anecdote. We talk to builders all the time and if they can source Canadian lumber with the tariff or Southern yellow pine without the tariff, they're going towards that product. And so, we're already seeing that it's been a benefit for our industry.
Mike: I'm already looking at 'em, getting ready to build a hotel. A year ago I was like, "Oh man, lumber prices are just man, I can't afford, you know, do I go with steel? Do I go with concrete?" I mean, but now it's like, I think it's all coming down to a more of a medium and I'm looking forward to maybe some better pricing on some of that stuff. But before I let you go. How can investors, people who are interested, want to know a little bit more about timberland? How can investors access your fund? And you're saying this through like Charles Schwab and some of the different advisor platforms, but you also have a portal link or some information on your website.
John: Yes. So the best way to learn more, reach out to us directly info@southviewtimber.com. One of our team members will get that email. We'll set up some time to, you know, see if this is a good fit, for your strategy. And yes, we make it easy to subscribe. We work with a best in class fund administrator, so all the subscription process is done digitally. We make it very easy to get an account set up and we'll hold your hand through that whole process. So also available again on the Charles Schwab Alternative Investments platform. If you work with a Schwab advisor, they can help you get connected. If you work with a different platform, you know, Fidelity, any of these other platforms and you're interested in the fund, we can get onboarded to those custodians as well. And we can work through them as well. So reach out directly info@southviewtimber.com.
Mike: I like that, you know, 'cause and some of the founders that are listening today, we have a lot of these tax divert, and putting money into different Schwab accounts and different diversification, as founders. And it's something that I might reach out to my Schwab guy and say, "Hey, you know, I kinda like this alternative fund here. So you might be getting a phone call from me also.
Mike: Is there anything, John, that I haven't hit on that. You'd like to, let our listeners in on?
John: Mike, I think that was a great high level overview. Appreciate the thoughtful questions and appreciate the time with you today. I hope I was able to impart some knowledge about the timberland industry and am looking forward to continuing the conversation with those that are interested. So thank you, Mike.
Mike: You're welcome. Everybody, it's another episode of The Richer Geek.
John Brenard, Southview Timber. Check him out if you want to diversify your portfolio or if you're just curious. Take care, John.
John: Thanks so much, Mike.
The information, statements, comments, views, and opinions (collectively, “Information”) provided in this podcast are not intended to be and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, accounting, tax or other advice. For our full disclosure, click here.
ABOUT JOHN BRENARD
John has excelled in diverse business environments for over 15 years, from executive and advisory positions at J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo Advisors to directing operations and expansion at multiple startups. During his time in the wealth management industry, he developed long-term client relationships based not only on his investment acumen but also on exceptional levels of integrity and service. An investor in timberland himself, John has a deep understanding of various investment asset classes and financial markets. His goal at Southview is to offer a broader audience of investors the same advantages in timberland investing that have benefited him. John holds a bachelor's degree from California State University, has earned multiple professional credentials in the investment industry, and is a member of the Georgia Forestry Association.