Griffin Forestry Estate Sold for £145 million
The 5,530 hectare Griffin Forestry Estate comprises the Griffin and Moness estates in Perthshire either side of the A826 south of Aberfeldy. I have a personal connection with the forest as I planted much of it in my first job when I left school.
The majority of the estate used to be part of the Grandtully Estate and was sold to the Midland Bank Pension Fund in 1980. The logo of the then Midland Bank was a griffin – hence the name. Around 20 years ago, the estate was sold to Julia Hands and a wind farm was then constructed. In 2012, Julia gifted the estate to her husband, Guy Hands.
In 2023 the property was put on the market at offers over £130 million. You can download Savills News Release here and the sales particulars here (4.8Mb pdf).
Last month, in July 2025, the property was eventually sold to Gresham House FF VI LLP, a limited liability partnership between Gresham House Initial Partner Ltd (ultimately owned by Searchlight Capital Partners III SED LP, a Cayman Limited Partnership and Gresham House Forest Fund VI LP, a Scottish Limited Partnership, whose limited partners include City of Cardiff Pension Fund, Swansea Council Pension Fund, Gresham House Ltd and others.
The sale price was £145 million, making it one of the most expensive rural estate acquisitions ever. It also means that Gresham House is now probably the second largest landowner in Scotland. This will be confirmed in my Who Owns Scotland 2025 report which will be published early in 2026 (see 2024 report here).
Hi Andy,
Is this purchasing group to continue using the land as a solar wind farm?
A bit scary that they may well be the biggest landowners in Scotland.
Should there be new laws enacted?
I dont know what their plans are but wind farm is operational until 2037 so I suspect it will continue to be forestry and wind turbines.
What an exuberant amount of money for not a lot in return.
Pricing local communities, local companies out of the market and removing the opportunity to increase the amount of Scotlands land in Scotlands hands
Presumably there is a lot of valuable mature timber and property rather than just land itself?
Yes – as set out in the brochure.
Whatever happened to the Land Reform Bill?
It has completed Stage 2 in Parliament and will move to Stage 3 by end of the year.
I’ve been reliably informed that the lease payment from wind farm operators to the land owner is roughly about £10,000 per MW per year for most wind farms
You may find this link interesting. I was shocked just how much a landowner gets for having wind turbines on his land. https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2025/07/19/the-truth-about-britains-taxpayer-cash-soaked-wind-farm-industry-laid-bare-in-scandalous-detail-in-court-papers/
And so Scotland continues to be sold off to foreigners. By the time the Scottish Government rise from the dead our descendants will be living in a rented bit of Scotland with revenues going to foreigners. We are let down over and over again by those supposed to be protecting our land.
Once again I thank you Andy for all the sterling work you do for Scotland. Our Haggis leader is called Andy.