Back to all InsightsVeripath Partners team celebrates 15 years in farmland investing

Veripath Partners team celebrates 15 years in farmland investing

Veripath has one of the most experienced farmland investment management teams in Canada and over 90,000 acres across its rapidly growing Canadian row-crop portfolios. Its principals have been deploying capital in the Canadian farmland space for 15 years with a consistent track record of generating returns, outperforming the Canadian farmland index by approximately 30% annually for 15 years without the material use of leverage and even excluding cash rents. 

The team’s internal rate of return (IRR)  was 12% from 2007 to 2020 versus 9% for the Canadian farmland benchmark and just as importantly with little change to the risk characteristics of farmland (in part due to a proprietary portfolio construction model and the avoidance of leverage as a material return driver)*. 

Veripath team:  IRR = 11.7%, standard deviation = 5.9%, skew = 1.1, kurtosis = 1.6

Benchmark: IRR = 8.8%, standard deviation = 3.1%, skew = 1.2, kurtosis = 1.1

Who is Veripath: Veripath is a Canadian alternative investment firm. Members of Veripath’s management team have decades of farmland, private equity, and private credit investment experience. Veripath currently manages approximately 90,000 acres of Canadian farmland across its active portfolios. Veripath believes that there are a number of factors that are supportive of the Canadian farmland investment premise, a few of which are highlighted below.

• Value: Canada has some of the most competitively priced farmland in the developed world – particularly on a productivity adjusted pricing basis.

• Diversification: Farmland exhibits low correlation to traditional stock/bond investments so can improve portfolio risk diversification.

• ESG: Western Canadian zero-till portfolios capture material amounts of carbon.

• Inflation Hedging: Farmland has historically had strong inflation/stagflation hedging capabilities and outperformed in real terms during periods of low real rates/high inflation.

• Demand: Farmland is a non-volatile way to capture the anticipated incremental demand coming from population growth and growing demands for food, feed, fuel and water globally.

• Veripath divides the Canadian market into two separate geographies of ~84M acres each in order to streamline and simplify farmland ownership regulatory compliance. Veripath Farmland (UR) LP invests in all of Canada (excluding SK and MB) and Veripath Farmland LP invests just in SK and MB. The two sister Funds have the same terms and fee structures.

Disclaimer: This document is for information only and is not intended to provide the basis of any credit or other evaluation, and does not constitute, nor should it be construed as, an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy securities of Veripath, the Funds or any other entity, nor shall any part of this document form the basis of, or be relied on in connection with, any contract or investment decision in relation to any securities. No reliance should be placed on the completeness of the information contained in this document. This document is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all matters concerning Veripath. Prospective purchasers of this investment opportunity may be provided with formal offering documents and will need to be qualified for investment prior to making any investment. No person has been authorised to give any information or to make any representation not contained in such formal offering documents. No securities regulatory authority or regulator has assessed the merits of the proposed offering or reviewed any of the offering documents. This investment opportunity is speculative and involves a high degree of risk. There is a risk that any investment made will be lost entirely or in part. Only prospective investors who do not require immediate liquidity of their investment and who can afford the loss of their entire investment should consider this investment. Veripath Farmland LP and Veripath Farmland (UR) LP have  retained Qwest Investment Fund Management Ltd. to provide certain of its services, including oversight and approval of net asset value (NAV) calculations, subscription and redemption processes, as well as access to Fundserv Inc.’s platform.

This  document may contain forward-looking information and statements (collectively, “forward-looking information“) within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of Veripath relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking information. More particularly and without limitation, this document contains forward-looking information relating to Veripath’s investment objectives and strategies and its expectations with respect to the benefits of investing in Canadian farmland. Forward-looking information is based upon a number of assumptions and involves a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Veripath’s control, which would cause actual results or events to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. Although management believes that expectations reflected in such forward-looking information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information since no assurance can be given that such information will prove to be accurate. Veripath does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by applicable securities laws.

*Note : The tables above represent assets that have been acquired, managed and, if applicable, sold by the principals of Veripath Farmland LP and Veripath Farmland (UR) LP. There is no guarantee of performance and past or projected performance is not indicative of future results. The tables above are provided solely to illustrate the experience of management and do not represent the allocation of assets to be purchased and held by Veripath Farmland LP and Veripath Farmland (UR) LP. Veripath’s IRRs  are transaction weighted and based on actual land acquisition dates & values – realized and unrealized. They are gross – e.g. not net of property taxes and management/performance fees – and do not include rental income.  Acre weighted IRR was 11.8%.  Single IRR point of 65% not included in calculations. Data begin as of 2007 and runs to year-end 2020.  Canadian farmland IRR is raw acre weighted data from provincial returns (StatsCan).