Transcription
Hello everyone. This is the uh Verra Paath introduction series.
Um, today we'll deal very uh briefly with uh an overview of who is VPaath. My name is Steven Johnson. I'm a managing partner at VPaath, and I was one of the co-founders. So, at a very high level, VPaath is a row crop farmland investment fund. We're based in Calgary, and we focus on on farmland markets where we believe there's a demonstrable productivity pricing discount, where there's demonstrable value.
It's important to note that we don't operate farms. Um, our model is to lease our land to trusted farming partners under long-term lease arrangements, and typically have escalations and uh almost universally have upfront payment structures where we get paid 100% of the lease payments in the fall.
As far as our experience uh is concerned, we, the senior team, has been investing in farmlands since 2007. Um, if you think globally, there are probably less than about 50 managers with with more than 15 years experience in the farmland space. It's a very embryonic asset class. The senior team at Verra Paath is one of the one of the few that has that sort of experience.
Um, it's a well-established fund. Verra Paath is part of an alternative investment platform uh which, in aggregate, has about a billion of AUM just in farmland assets alone. We have about 400 million of AUM as of Q1 2024, and that's growing quite rapidly.
I'd like to think that we're a a proven investment team. Um, we've been investing now in farmland for 15 plus years. We've never had a down quarter in our entire investment history. Um, and also, we've consistently outperformed the Canadian Farmland Index since inception.
Technology is another area where I think we're unique. Um, we've built uh because we don't operate farms, we really have to be an expert in monitoring. Our monitoring has to be accurate and scalable and cost-effective. And so we've built a leading-edge suite of technology tools in order to achieve that outcome. Um, it's combined uh it's a combination of real-time satellite imagery during the growing season with artificial intelligence tools to examine those pictures at the end of the end of the season, and then recurring agrology on a three to five-year cycle. Um, and all of that data is then incorporated into our um software systems, and that's how we conduct our monitoring programs.
On top of that, we've also um built some very unique factor-driven investment screening models and portfolio construction models, which I think differentiate us from our competitors. We're really trying to optimize a number of variables with, and which we believe will generate um better than benchmark returns. And I think it's the reason why we've done that um for such a long period of time. And it's really at the heart of it, it's the productivity-adjusted pricing. It's the historical volatility of yield, and it's the historical yield trend.
And finally, and I, this is relevant for investors, um, it, we're very well diversified. Um, once again, as of Q1 2024, we have in excess of 120,000 acres under management. Um, and that's operated by 50 plus farming partners across Canada. So, it's a very large geography, a lot of acres, a lot of operators, which gives you appropriate diversification, which is a critical risk mitigator in a farmland investment strategy like ours.
So, uh that's it for uh today. Um, on the who is Verra Paath piece. Um, there are additional short introductory videos on other key elements of our strategy, which I encourage you to watch.