Highlands Rewilding Update from Jeremy Leggett

I am happy to report that we have been sailing well of late in the strong headwinds that have been facing us on the frontier of the embryonic nature-recovery market.

Our asset sales have taken longer than I had hoped when we started our pivot to becoming an asset-light data-driven land management company, but we are now in the final straight, with 92% of value sold. That will be up to 96% soon as sales in train close. Thereafter the remaining amount of our debt will be more than covered by the one asset still on the market. 

Crucially, 83% of the land we have sold has gone to buyers with whom we are now in land-management partnership. So we are operating 1,785 hectares of land for nature recovery, across four sites with a great range of habitats from mountain bog to coastal and high net potential for natural-capital monetisation. We project that these four sites will generate £75 million of net profit for the company over the next 15 years. In this we use conservative pricing assumptions for carbon and biodiversity uplifts and cost-base assumptions that we know well after 5 years of data collection and on-the-ground operations. That £75m represents a very workable return on our £11m of equity raised to date from your good selves, and the £12m of high-risk loans, now almost fully repaid via asset sales.

We have an encouraging pipeline and prospects beyond. On top of which we have all the intangible value created by taking the risk with the loans, including - so most stakeholders feed back to me - an excellent reputation as a data-rooted front runner, and a field-proven way of working with, and creating agency for, the local communities wherein we are rooted.

On the current Highlands Rewilding fundraising round, closing in December, things are moving so fast that my board has decided to limit the raise to £1.5 million, so that we create space potentially to increase valuation, and so value for you our investors, before a further equity round following soon thereafter in 2026. We believe that the prospects of positive developments between now and then - in emergence of demand, and/or strategic partnerships - are sufficiently high to justify this approach. In 2026 our target will be £6 million, which would be sufficient to get us to breakeven (i.e. funding our own expanding operations from our own cash generation). 

We are more than half-way to the £1.5 million target already, with £780,000 of commitments, 3 from founding funders topping up and 3 from new investors. Therefore £720,000 is unallocated as of today. We are hoping the allocated shares will be viewed as very attractive at the £10 share price on offer for a high-net-worth individuals, family offices or progressive organisations who might love the idea of an early investment in a front runner on the nature frontier.  

The timeline ahead now looks like this. In the rest of September we will continue the dozens of conversations we have underway with potential investors. In October and November we will continue and expand the number of those conversations, and do due-diligence with the relatively few more we need to reach our £1.5 million target. After a short break, in 2026 we will begin work on the second target of £6 million. Just a few players we are talking to today could easily invest that amount, and in some cases by themselves. But by the end of November we will have cast the net wider still. We have some major opportunities coming up in which to do so.

All our 809 shareholders will have the opportunity to top up at £10 a share (the same share price as last time, despite all the progress made in the interim), if you should wish to, between now and December. We will be working on the modalities of that with advisors. If we have to exceed the £1.5 million somewhat to make space, that won’t be a problem.

Finally, let me add a note on our work in local communities. This does not appear in the profit and loss account, but is absolutely vital. Nature recovery can never be taken to national scale unless local communities are given agency. There are all sorts of reasons for this, but if I have to pick one it would be the need to fix what the Scottish government calls "the national housing emergency.” Without affordable housing there will be no rural workforce to do the land-management work needed for nature recovery congruent with the ambitious national targets. In that respect, imagine how thrilling it has been to sell 18 homes in recent months and see every one of them go to a local community member, a returner, a tenant buying their home, or a rewilding supporter. That would have been virtually impossible had a conventional buyer, not Highlands Rewilding, been the original acquirer of the estates. Add to this the joint ventures we now have underway with local communities, including in local food production and mental health (mindfulness retreats), and you can see why this aspect of our work is so important to us.

In closing, I would like to thank my brilliant operations team, my nerves-of-steel board, our local community collaborators and all your good selves for your patience and support as we have fought our way in choppy waters. Almost all the world’s governments signed up in 2022 for ambitious targets to reverse biodiversity collapse. Entering 2026, there are hardly any effective policies in play that are consistent with those promises. But we will not give up. We dare not. There are signs of potential breakthrough, and we will continue to try and help lead the way, sowing much-needed hope as we do so.

All best

Jeremy

Jeremy Leggett (right) and senior colleagues make good use this week of a Highlands Rewilding yurt built for retreats by a local community mindfulness group, Bunloit.