E176 Richard Kelly & Robert Guest: Britain Is Running Out of Trees

Richard Kelly and Robert Guest were employees 63 and 64 at Foresight. They built a £150 million portfolio in 12 months, took it public on the London Stock Exchange during COP26, watched interest rates destroy their share price through no fault of their own, delisted — and then rebuilt. Within months of going private, their three biggest shareholders rolled straight back in. That's not a recovery story. That's a vote of confidence in people.This is one of the most complete journeys Second Nature has hosted: from internal innovation lab to IPO, from listed markets to take-private, from 50 forests to nearly 100 assets across 31,000 hectares — and 12.5 million trees in the ground. The UK imports 80% of its timber. It's the second largest net importer in the world, behind only China. Richard and Robert are quietly building the answer to that — and they haven't even started talking about carbon yet.We get into the reality of raising capital in a market that was moving against you. The emotional cost of doing everything right and still getting punished by macro forces beyond your control.  And how AI is reshaping the due diligence process.