Squire Patton Boggs has advised NewLife Forest Restoration, a leading sustainable forest products business in the Southwest United States on raising new funding to scale its forest restoration activities and reduce the occurrence of catastrophic wildfires.
The company closed a $200 million “sustainability-linked” bond financing to fund the expansion of NewLife’s wood products manufacturing facilities and forest restoration capacity, enabling a significant increase in annual acreage restored.
This is one of the first major finance deals conducted under the United States Forest Service public private partnerships program for forest management and maintenance. The bonds carried the Sustainability Linked designation from Kestrel, a recognized third party verifier of green bonds and sustainable bonds.
The Squire Patton Boggs team advising NewLife Forest Restoration was led by partner Kelly Singer and included counsel Greg Johnson and senior associate Brandon Arents.
NewLife Forest Restoration restores overgrown forests to a healthy, more natural state with the mission of reducing the incidence of catastrophic wildfires. The business manufactures a variety of softwood lumber products to supply the fast-growing housing markets in Arizona, California and Texas. NewLife supports a burgeoning network of suppliers, customers, and partners as it redevelops the forest products industry in Arizona with a new focus on restoration.