Is Gresham House the third largest landowner in Scotland?

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Gresham House Ltd. a private limited company (No. 00000871) incorporated in 1857. It is an asset management company wholly owned by SeedBidCo Ltd, a company registered in Guernsey. The ultimate controlling part is Searchlight Capital Partners III SED, a limited partnership registered in the Cayman Islands.

The Group of Companies Accounts 2024 here explains their role and contains a list of subsidiaries and funds
Some more detail can be found in this blog I wrote in January 2024.

The company appeared before the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee yesterday (4 Feb 2025) to give oral evidence on the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill.

Rob Carlow, from Gresham House said that,

“In terms of direct ownership, Gresham House really owns very little land.”

“Gresham is not the 5th or the 6th or 4th or whatever number of largest landowner in Scotland” (1)

In an earlier evidence session on natural capital on 26 March 2024, Olly Hughes, the Managing Director of Gresham House had this to say

The Convener
I have a few quick-fire questions, because we are very nearly at the end of our session. The first question is for Olly Hughes. You said that Gresham House has managed land. It also owns land, does it not? If so, how much land does it own?
Olly Hughes
Gresham House does not own any land directly. Actually, that is not strictly true. We own a proportion—about 1 per cent—of some of the funds that we have invested in for the purposes of aligning our interests with investors, but we do not own any land directly under the name of Gresham House.
The Convener
Andy Wightman is wrong when he says that you are the third-biggest landowner in Scotland.
Olly Hughes
He is. We are the third-biggest land manager. (2)

Here are the facts.

Gresham House Ltd and subsidiary companies control at least 55,000 hectares of land in Scotland. They do this (with one exception), by being the General Partner in a number of Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLP), legal entities which, unlike their English counterparts, have legal personality and can thus own land. The General Partner in an SLP is the partner in control and who exercises the powers of ownership and can thus execute deeds to buy or sell land and enter into contracts with others. The Limited Partners, on the other hand, (who comprise the bulk of the investors), have no such power and play no role in the governance of the SLP. The identity of the investors can all be obtained from the relvant filings on the Companies House website.

The range of SLPs is listed below along with the total ownership so far as I have identified it to date (there will be more properties). The Forestry Partnership 2008 LLP is the one exception in that it is a limited liability partnership, of which Gresham House is one of the partners.

So that whilst Olly Hughes and Rob Carlow are strictly correct when they say that Gresham House Ltd. owns no land (aside from a few hundred hectares according to Rob Carlow – the 233ha referred to in the table below), they are not being fully transparent when they claim that they are are merely managers. The General Partner in an SLP is the effective owner in law and the General Partner is Gresham House Ltd (or more typically one of its wholly owned subsidiaries). The image at the top of this blog shows Bawd Moss, a 85ha property owned by Gresham House Forest Fund I LP in Kincardineshire.

It is frustrating to watch witnesses to Parliamentary Committees failing to give clear and helpful answers to MSPs and instead adopting obfuscation and diversion.

Gresham House is the third largest landowner in Scotland.

Legal EntityLegal FormCompany No.No. propertiesTotal hectares
The Forestry Partnership 2008 LLPLimited Liability Partnership (LLP)SO300708157,935
Gresham House Timberland LPScottish Limited Partnership (SLP)SL019763206,497
Gresham House Forestry Fund LPScottish Limited Partnership (SLP)SL02685572,442
Gresham House Forest Growth and Sustainability LPScottish Limited Partnership (SLP)SL034785237,065
Gresham House Forest Fund I LPScottish Limited Partnership (SLP)SL0065974912,857
Gresham House Forest Funds General Partner Ltd.Company Limited by shares66152491233
GH Sustainable Timber & Energy LPScottish Limited Partnership (SLP)SL0077034411,335
Gresham House Forest Fund VI LPScottish Limited Partnership (SLP)SL03546941,627
Gresham House Forest Fund I LPScottish Limited Partnership (SLP)SL006597114,795
TOTAL17454,786

(1) See 10:48:45 in video of meeting
https://www.scottishparliament.tv/meeting/net-zero-energy-and-transport-committee-february-4-2025

(2) Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee Official Report 26 March 2024 Col 28
https://www.parliament.scot/api/sitecore/CustomMedia/OfficialReport?meetingId=15789