IKEA is now Latvia's largest private forest owner: what it means for you

What actually happened

In early 2026 two deals closed in Latvia's private forest market that changed who owns the largest share of private forest land in the country. Both buyers carry the same brand in their name — IKEA.

The first and larger one: on 30 January, Ingka Investments — the investment arm of Ingka Group, the world's largest IKEA retailer — completed the purchase of forest land from the Swedish forest-owners' association Södra. In Latvia it bought 135,232 ha (of which around 85%, or roughly 115,000 ha, is forest land), plus another 17,742 ha in Estonia. The price for the whole Baltic asset was EUR 720 million. It is the largest forest-land acquisition in Latvian history.

After this deal, Ingka Investments manages about 230,000 ha of forest in Latvia (it held around 110,000 ha before). That made it Latvia's largest private forest owner — confirmed publicly by both Ingka and the Latvian Forest Owners' Association.

The second deal came a little later and was smaller. On 27 February, Inter IKEA Group completed the purchase of about 24,000 ha of forest from the fund CapMan Natural Capital (Dasos Timberland Fund II). Those 24,000 ha sit in various parts of Latvia and Lithuania combined — how much of it is in Latvia, the buyer has not disclosed separately. So this figure must not be added to Ingka's 230,000 ha.

Ingka and Inter IKEA: why they are not the same IKEA

This is where it is easy to get confused. Behind the IKEA brand sit several separate companies with different owners, and two of them bought forest — independently of each other.

Ingka Group is the largest IKEA retailer; it accounts for around 90% of all IKEA retail turnover. Ingka is owned by a charitable foundation, which means profit is not paid out to private shareholders as dividends but reinvested — including in long-term assets such as forest land. It was Ingka's investment arm, Ingka Investments, that bought the forest from Södra.

Inter IKEA Group is a different company. Among other things, it runs IKEA retail in the Baltics and is responsible for wood supply for IKEA products. Its 24,000 ha purchase serves exactly that purpose — securing long-term access to responsibly sourced wood for its supply chain. The acquired land is FSC-certified.

The practical point for a seller or buyer is simple: this is not one buyer "buying up all of Latvia", but two separate institutional players with different logic. One invests in forest as a long-term asset; the other secures raw material for factories. Neither of them buys a single 8 ha plot from a private person — both operate at portfolio level, buying thousands of hectares in a single deal.

How much it is: 230,000 ha in context

The figure 230,000 ha says little on its own until you compare it with all of Latvia's forest.

Forest covers about 3.4 million hectares in Latvia, or around 52% of the country's territory. Of that, the largest state company — AS "Latvijas valsts meži" — manages around 1.63 million hectares, almost half. The rest is in the hands of private and municipal owners.

So Ingka's 230,000 ha is close to 7% of all Latvia's forest. That is a lot for a single owner, but far from dominating the whole market — through LVM, the state remains an incomparably larger player. Still, within the private forest segment Ingka is now the single largest owner, which is exactly why the deal matters.

One more figure for scale: Södra's Latvian holdings that passed to Ingka covered roughly 2% of the country's territory — as the Ministry of Agriculture put it. That is not an abstraction; it is a real, map-able amount of land that now belongs to one long-term owner.

What it means if you sell forest

The first thing worth understanding: a large institutional buyer will most likely not knock on your door. Ingka and Inter IKEA buy whole portfolios — tens and hundreds of thousands of hectares at a time — not individual private cadastres. If you own 15 or 50 ha, your buyer will still be a local logging company, a neighbour, some investor, or an auction participant — not IKEA.

That means the everyday mechanics of the private market — felling-rights auctions, brokers, direct deals — do not change. The price you get still depends on species, age, assortments, access, and encumbrances, not on the idea that "forest in Latvia is now worth more because IKEA is buying it".

Second: an institutional buy-and-hold owner takes land off the market rather than putting it on. Ingka itself has said its horizon is a century and that it plans to be a stable long-term owner. Holdings like these do not come back up for sale for decades. In regions where Södra's estates were large, supply for buyers shrinks — but that affects people who want to buy, not you who are selling.

The practical takeaway for a seller: do not let this headline move your price expectations in either direction. Your sale price should still rest on the data of the specific stand — dominant species, age, standing volume, and assortment mix. That is exactly what you can check in the MezaData calculator before talking to a buyer, so your asking price is grounded rather than pulled out of the air.

What it means if you buy forest

For a buyer the picture is a little different. The main effect of large deals is on supply: in regions where institutional investors are active, larger and higher-quality forest blocks more often change hands in portfolio deals without ever reaching the open market. That means less choice and — for the best parcels — more competition from players with deep pockets.

At the same time, keep a sense of proportion. Ingka's 230,000 ha is concentrated in specific estates, not spread evenly across the whole country. Across most of Latvia's private forest market the presence of institutional buyers is not felt, and ordinary 10–50 ha cadastres are still traded between local buyers and sellers.

The practical takeaway for a buyer: the arrival of institutional investors is one more reason to know an asset's real value before fighting for it at auction or in a direct deal. If a professional buyer with access to data and financing is sitting across the table, overpaying gets expensive. Check your stand's species, age, and expected assortments before naming a price — that is the only protection against overpaying under competitive pressure.

What does not change tomorrow

Big headlines tend to create the feeling that everything changes at once. In this case it does not.

For most small and mid-sized forest owners in Latvia, the day after the IKEA deal looks exactly like the day before. Your obligations — managing the forest, clearing felling with the VMD, taxes, regeneration — do not change. The prices paid for standing timber or forest land are set by the same factors as before. Buyers and sellers still meet in the same channels.

What has genuinely changed is the market structure: a single very large, long-term, professional owner has appeared in the private forest segment, and it does not plan to sell. That is a signal about how forest as an asset is being re-rated — from "a local plot of land" to "an institutional long-term investment". But it is a slow structural signal, not an event that demands urgent action from you this week.

The best response to news like this is the same as always: make decisions about your forest based on concrete data about your own property, not on market headlines.

Sources

• Ingka Group, 30.01.2026 — Ingka Investments completes forestland acquisition in the Baltics from Södra — 135,232 ha in Latvia, 17,742 ha in Estonia, EUR 720M.
• Inter IKEA Group — Inter IKEA Group acquires forestland in Latvia and Lithuania — ~24,000 ha in Latvia and Lithuania combined.
• CapMan Natural Capital, 27.02.2026 — Baltic forest portfolio divestment to Inter IKEA — ~24,000 ha, Dasos Timberland Fund II.
• Latvian Forest Owners' Association (LSM / Ministry of Agriculture) — Latvia's largest private forest owner will be Ingka Investments — about 230,000 ha after the deal; largest deal in Latvian history.
• AS "Latvijas valsts meži" — Latvia's forest ~3.4M ha (~52% of territory) — LVM manages ~1.63M ha.