Nuveen Farmland REIT Goes Live With $34.7 Million Across Five Share Classes

The trust stood up its board and audit committee the same day it took in capital, seating two independent trustees drawn from farmland investing and non-traded REIT finance.

September 7, 2026

Nuveen’s farmland vehicle is open for business. On September 1, Nuveen Farmland REIT completed the initial closing of its continuous private offering and commenced operations, selling 1,732,960.387 common shares for roughly $34.7 million at $20.00 per share, plus upfront selling commissions where applicable.

The capital arrived unevenly across the trust’s five share classes:

• Type A-I took the bulk of the raise at just over $28 million;
• Type A-II followed at nearly $6 million;
• Type I drew $400,000;
• Type S-I and Type S-II came in at $250,000 and $10,000 respectively, both inclusive of upfront selling commissions.

The shares were sold in reliance on Section 4(a)(2) and Regulation D rather than through a registered public offering, placing the trust in the private-placement lane of the non-traded REIT market while it reports under the Exchange Act following its Form 10 registration.

Operating architecture set on day one

The Maryland statutory trust put its operating agreements in place the same day. Nuveen Farmland Advisors LLC took on the advisory mandate, with authority to source, evaluate and monitor investment opportunities and to make acquisition, management, financing and disposition decisions within the trust’s stated objectives and guidelines, subject to oversight by the board of trustees.

The trust also amended and restated the limited partnership agreement of Nuveen Farmland REIT Operating Partnership L.P., where it serves as both general partner and a limited partner alongside a special limited partner entity. Distribution runs through Nuveen Securities, a subsidiary of sponsor Nuveen, LLC, under a second amended and restated intermediary manager agreement dated June 9. That entity manages relationships with participating broker dealers and financial advisors and coordinates marketing for the continuous private offering.

The people running it

R. Martin Davies serves as chief executive officer and president and chairs the board. He is global head of Nuveen Natural Capital, the firm’s land-based asset management division, which oversees more than $12 billion across upward of three million acres in ten countries. Davies joined the division in 2014 after deploying institutional farmland capital in New Zealand, Australia, Romania, Poland and Chile for Insight Investment.

Janelle Porsov, head of finance for Nuveen Natural Capital, is chief financial officer. Jennifer Mangano, who has led accounting and reporting for Nuveen since late 2022 and previously served as chief financial officer of the TIAA and Nuveen broker dealers, is chief accounting officer and treasurer.

Independent oversight installed

The board expanded to three seats, with Roderick Robertson and Donna Brandin filling the new vacancies. Both were determined independent, both sit on the audit committee, and Brandin chairs it.

Robertson spent more than two decades in the agricultural investment arm of Prudential Insurance Company of America and then served as executive vice president and chief executive of horticultural crops at Westchester Group Investment Management until 2020, giving the board direct farmland acquisition and disposition experience. Brandin has been chief financial officer of the Lightstone Group since 2008 and currently holds the finance chair at five public, non-listed REITs sponsored by that firm, and she previously served as chief financial officer of Equity Residential. She has also been an independent director of the Global Cities REIT since 2018, tying the new trust’s audit function to a Nuveen non-traded vehicle that has been working through NAV pressure and elevated repurchase demand.

Independent trustees unaffiliated with the advisor will receive a $100,000 annual retainer, with an additional $20,000 for the audit committee chair and $5,000 for a lead independent trustee if one is designated. Half of that compensation is payable in cash or unrestricted stock in quarterly installments; the other half comes as an annual restricted stock grant priced off the most recent transaction price and vesting after one year. Trustees may elect to take the cash portion in unrestricted stock.

Liquidity terms set at launch

The board adopted a share repurchase plan allowing shareholders to submit quarterly repurchase requests, capped in aggregate at 5% of the trust’s aggregate net asset value per calendar quarter, measured against aggregate NAV as of the prior quarter end. A distribution reinvestment plan was adopted alongside it, with cash distributions automatically reinvested unless a shareholder elects otherwise. The trust also adopted its amended and restated declaration of trust and its bylaws effective the same day.