How Ikea is taking over NZ’s forests and farms
A sister company to Swedish furniture giant Ikea has quietly bought up more than 23,000 hectares of New Zealand forests and farmland since 2021.
Ingka Investments Management NZ and Ingka Investments Forest Assets NZ were registered with the Companies Office in December 2020. Both are described as related to forestry and owned by Ingka Investments, a Dutch-based investment arm of Ingka Group, Ikea’s largest owner-operator.
Since August 2021, the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) has granted the companies 20 consents to buy more than 23,100ha of land in plots from Southland to Bay of Plenty. Because some transaction details have been withheld by the OIO, the total value of Ingka’s investments is not known.
However, the nine prices so far made public total $154.2 million and relate to purchases covering an area of 10,488.6ha, an average price of $25,190 per hectare.
Individual purchase prices ranged from $1.6m for a 161.9ha block at Matau, South Taranaki, to $88m for Huiarua and Matanui stations near Gisborne. Most recently, Ingka invested $11.3m in 293ha of commercial forest at Taringatura, Southland, and paid $16.6m for 1646ha across two properties in Taranaki.
All but one of Ingka’s consents were granted under the special forestry test, a fast-track process introduced in 2018 to streamline consent pathways for foreign investment in forestry.
A 2019 investigation by RNZ found the largest landowners in New Zealand were foreign forestry interests and sales of sheep and beef stations to forestry interests had accelerated under the special forestry test.
Chief insight officer at Beef and Lamb, Julian Ashby, said sheep and beef farms traditionally sold for about $7000/ha, and dairy farms for about $15,000/ha, but carbon forestry companies offered up to $25,000/ha.
“It’s blowing all other land use classes off the map. I just heard of a dairy farm converted to a seedling stock nursery, it’s the first time that’s happened,” he said.
In response to ongoing concern over the rate at which productive farmland was being converted to commercial forests and damage caused by forestry slash, farm-toforest conversions were removed from the special forestry test earlier this year.
When Ingka’s early interest in buying land in New Zealand was revealed, an Ikea spokesperson said the group was “considering different opportunities, including forestry investments in the country”.
Ingka Investments was “constantly looking for new opportunities that are linked to [its] core business,” and ones which supported its sustainability goals and climate commitments, he said.
Overseas, Ingka Investments holds a diverse portfolio, including stakes in a truck-sharing business, a logistics co-ordinates firm and various plastics recycling businesses.
Ikea is the world’s largest furniture retailer, with more than 450 stores and retail sales of €41.9b (NZ$69b) in 2021.
Its first New Zealand store is expected to open at Auckland’s Sylvia Park shopping centre in early 2025.
At 34,000m², the Mt Wellington store will be bigger than the average Ikea globally.