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From Home Furnishing Business
Ingka Investments Acquires Forestland in Latvia & Estonia
October 20,
2025 by Karen Parrish in Business Strategy, Industry 
Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group (the largest IKEA retailer), has agreed to acquire approximately 153,000 hectares of land in Latvia and Estonia, of which 89 percent are forestland, from Södra, Sweden’s largest forest owners’ association. Completion is subject to approval by the relevant regulatory authorities.
Peter van der Poel, Managing Director of Ingka Investments stated, “Our unique ownership structure allows us to invest with a long-term perspective rather than short-term quarterly thinking. Investing in forestry represents exactly that kind of generational commitment. We want to contribute to the regional economies where we’re present and maintain healthy forests for the generations to come.”
As the world’s largest IKEA retailer, Ingka Group operates in 31 markets and represents 87% of global IKEA sales. Unlike typical corporations, the Group is owned by a foundation with a charitable purpose. This means that profits are reinvested into the business rather than distributed to private shareholders, enabling self-funded, long-term investments like this major forestland acquisition in the Baltics.
This long-term investment approach also enables a different acquisition strategy. Rather than a focus on mainly exporting timber and short-term returns, Ingka Investments aims to partner with Baltic sawmills and panel manufacturers to process wood regionally, creating skilled jobs and building local expertise.
Niks Sauva, Country Manager, Ingka Investments Latvia, continued: “We’re committed to creating more value locally in the Baltics. Our goal is to increase the share of wood processed regionally to strengthen the Baltic forestry value chain.”
Already today, Ingka Investments owns 331,000 hectares in seven countries. In financial year 2025, the Ingka Investments forestland teams employed around 190 co-workers, and created thousands of additional jobs through local contractors. The company planted 14 million seedlings, that together with natural regeneration contributed to overall forest expansion and an estimated net growth of 500,000 cubic meters annually. 22 percent of Ingka Investments’ existing forests are managed with a special focus on conservation and prioritizing environmental objectives first.
Earlier this year, Ingka Investments allocated 16,000 hectares of its Latvian forests for an applied research collaboration with the European Forest Institute and Preferred by Nature. The project trials practices such as closer‑to‑nature and continuous‑cover forestry to improve resilience and minimize biodiversity impacts, with the intention of scaling proven methods across Ingka Investments’ forests and wider supply chains.
Van der Poel ended, “We firmly believe that responsible forest management delivers both environmental and economic success. It’s in our interest to manage our forests for the long-term, preserving and improving their health, while providing this renewable resource for furniture and other uses. Our goal is to ensure that this vital resource remains forests forever.”
Lotta Lyrå, President and CEO of Södra, said: “For Södra, this is a transaction that enables us to focus more on developing the value of our members’ forests and thereby strengthen our long-term competitiveness. We are very pleased to have found a buyer who shares our view of responsible and sustainable forestry, and we look forward to seeing the forests in the Baltics managed in the same spirit.”
Completion is subject to approval by the relevant authorities in Latvia and Estonia.