Palantir CEO Alex Karp buys forest in Berg municipality for 240 million

The tech billionaire and CEO of the IT company Palantir, Alex Karp, has bought 15,000 hectares of forest from the forest group SCA in Storsjö Kapell, Berg municipality. It is Alex Karp's newly started company Cladonia Skog AB that bought the forest for SEK 240 million.

The forest area corresponds to the entire land area of ​​Malmö municipality or 2.6 percent of the entire Berg municipality.

But in order for the purchase to be completed, the company needed to obtain an acquisition permit from the county administrative board.

Gets yes to the forest purchase

The Land Acquisition Act is strict when it comes to the purchase of land in cases where the seller is a private person and the buyer is a legal entity (for example, a limited liability company).

But in the current case, it is a purchase between two legal entities - two companies.

Thereby, the so-called balance of ownership is maintained, which the law aims to protect, among other things.

Must not adversely affect employment

That is what Cladonia Skog emphasizes in its application. This is also what the county administrative board finds, a fact that is one of the reasons why the county administrative board granted an acquisition permit on September 9.

But the purchase takes place in a sparsely populated area. Then the impact on employment and housing must also be included in the assessment.

In its application, Cladonia Skog writes: "The acquisition does not change the actual use of the property and affects neither the possibilities for living in the area nor the conditions for continued use."

The County Administrative Board makes the same assessment: that the forest purchase will not affect either employment or housing in a negative way.

All in all, this means that the county board says yes to the forest deal.