Blog

Liv McMahon
Technology reporter

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the tech giant’s cloud computing
division, and its infrastructure underpins millions of large companies’
websites and platforms.

Many of the apps on your smartphone are actually running on AWS
data centres.

In an update on its service status page where it highlights any
problems, it said it could confirm “significant error rates for
requests” to one of its endpoints for services in its US-EAST-1 region.

As the world’s largest IKEA retailer, Ingka Group operates in 31 markets and represents 87% of global IKEA sales. Unlike typical corporations, the Group is owned by a foundation with a charitable purpose. This means that profits are reinvested into the business rather than distributed to private shareholders, enabling self-funded, long-term investments like this major forestland acquisition in the Baltics.

This long-term investment approach also enables a different acquisition strategy. Rather than a focus on mainly exporting timber and short-term returns, Ingka Investments aims to partner with Baltic sawmills and panel manufacturers to process wood regionally, creating skilled jobs and building local expertise.

Niks Sauva, Country Manager, Ingka Investments Latvia, continued: “We’re committed to creating more value locally in the Baltics. Our goal is to increase the share of wood processed regionally to strengthen the Baltic forestry value chain.”

Already today, Ingka Investments owns 331,000 hectares in seven countries. In financial year 2025, the Ingka Investments forestland teams employed around 190 co-workers, and created thousands of additional jobs through local contractors. The company planted 14 million seedlings, that together with natural regeneration contributed to overall forest expansion and an estimated net growth of 500,000 cubic metres annually. 22 percent of Ingka Investments’ existing forests are managed with a special focus on conservation and prioritising environmental objectives first.

Earlier this year, Ingka Investments allocated 16,000 hectares of its Latvian forests for an applied research collaboration with the European Forest Institute and Preferred by Nature. The project trials practices such as closer‑to‑nature and continuous‑cover forestry to improve resilience and minimise biodiversity impacts, with the intention of scaling proven methods across Ingka Investments’ forests and wider supply chains.

Van der Poel ended: “We firmly believe that responsible forest management delivers both environmental and economic success. It’s in our interest to manage our forests for the long-term, preserving and improving their health, while providing this renewable resource for furniture and other uses. Our goal is to ensure that this vital resource remains forests forever.”

Lotta Lyrå, President and CEO of Södra, said: “For Södra, this is a transaction that enables us to focus more on developing the value of our members’ forests and thereby strengthen our long-term competitiveness. We are very pleased to have found a buyer who shares our view of responsible and sustainable forestry, and we look forward to seeing the forests in the Baltics managed in the same spirit.”

Completion is subject to approval by the relevant authorities in Latvia and Estonia.

Note to editors

Ingka Investments currently owns around 331,500 hectares (ha) of land where it is managing existing forests and growing new forests: 110,000 ha in Latvia, 31,000 ha in Estonia, 27,000 ha in Lithuania, 75,000 ha in the US, 51,000 ha in Romania, 28,500 ha in Aotearoa New Zealand, and 9,000 ha in Finland.

In financial year 2025, Ingka Investments Latvia generated a turnover of EUR 11.9 million, employed 40 local co-workers, and created additional jobs through local contractors. Ingka Investments Estonia generated a turnover of EUR 8.5 million and employed 12 local co-workers.

Total area included in the acquisition:

Latvia
Total area: 135,324 ha

Forestland area: 119,929 ha (89% of the total area)

Estonia

Total area: 17,742 ha

Forestland area: 15,773 ha (89% of the total area)

The purchase price of the asset was EUR 720 million.

Ingka Group has IKEA retail operations in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States. Ingka Group doesn’t have any retail operations in the Baltics. The IKEA retail operations in the Baltics are operated by Inter IKEA Group.

Read more about Ingka Group’s sustainability performance and commitments in the latest Annual & Sustainability Summary report: ​Ingka Group Annual Summary and Sustainability Report FY24

For more information on the IKEA Forest Agenda, please visit: Wood and forestry – IKEA Global

About Ingka Investments

Ingka Investments is the investment arm of Ingka Group, the largest IKEA retailer. They invest in assets, manage companies, and operate strategic businesses to preserve and create value for Ingka Group and IKEA – now, and for generations to come. Taking a long-term approach, they invest across six strategic areas: forestland, renewable energy, real estate, circular, financial markets, and business acquisitions and venture investments. Ingka investments responsibly manages over 331,500 hectares of forestland in seven countries, focusing on long-term ownership that helps preserve and increase the forest quality for future generations. Find further information on Ingka Investments here.

About Ingka Group

With IKEA retail operations in 31 markets, Ingka Group is the largest IKEA retailer and represents 87% of IKEA retail sales. It is a strategic partner to develop and innovate the IKEA business and help define common IKEA strategies. Ingka Group owns and operates IKEA sales channels under franchise agreements with Inter IKEA Systems B.V. It has three business areas: IKEA Retail, Ingka Investments and Ingka Centres. Read more on Ingka.com.

Wild Bioscience (Wild Bio) the Irish co-founded Oxford spinout that aims to improve crop varieties sustainably has raised $60m in an EIT-led round.

Co-founded by Irish man Prof Steve Kelly, the Wild Bio $60m Series A round was led by the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), to help advance the spin-out’s mission to develop improved crop varieties using AI and precision breeding. Other participants included existing investors Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), Braavos Capital, and the University of Oxford.

Wild Bio specialises in crop genetics, using a data-driven approach to “improve crop productivity, climate resilience, and agricultural sustainability”.

“The Wild Bio platform deciphers hundreds of millions of years of plant evolution to identify promising genetic improvements from wild species,” according to the company. “These evolutionary innovations are then used to guide precision breeding strategies for modern elite crop varieties.”

Wild Bio has its origins in the University of Oxford, from where founders Dr Ross Hendron and Irishman Prof Steve Kelly spun out the business in 2021, in order to move their scientific research out of the lab and onto the farm. Today the company has a team of 30 in their Oxford headquarters, and has field trials in four countries.

“Advancing agriculture has limitless potential to help people and the planet,” said Dr Ross Hendron, Co-founder and CEO of Wild Bio. “So to achieve meaningful, scalable impact, we need the right investors who are truly aligned with that big vision. I’m deeply grateful to EIT and to our current investors for sharing our excitement about what we’ve accomplished so far, and for their united support as we embark on this ambitious growth journey together.”

His co-founder and Wild Bio chief science officer, Prof Steve Kelly, who is also head of the Plant Biology Institute at EIT says that combining the research at EIT and Wild will “create a powerful synergy that could reshape sustainable agriculture on a global scale”.

“Together, we will accelerate our ability to bring new technologies to market and deliver innovative solutions that enhance crop resilience, boost yields, and promote environmental sustainability,” he said.

Founder of EIT Larry Ellison – better known to most as the chair of Oracle – welcomed the investment: “The ultimate goal is to grow these new crop varieties on a commercial scale and help provide food security around the world. EIT is committed to working with Wild Bio to reach this goal.”

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