Hancock Timber Resource Group Purchases 123,000 Acres of Washington State Timberland from Weyerhaeuser & Foundation

BOSTON, October 22, 2002 - Hancock Timber Resource Group today announced it has agreed to purchase 123,000 acres of timberlands in western Washington from Weyerhaeuser and the Weyerhaeuser Foundation for approximately $222 million.

"We are extremely pleased to acquire these forests," said Dan Christensen, Managing Director, Global Operations, for Hancock Timber Resource Group. "They have been well-managed by Weyerhaeuser, and we look forward to continuing that tradition."

"We're continually evaluating our timberlands and manufacturing facilities to determine how we can increase our competitiveness, enhance our operating efficiencies and better serve customer needs," said Richard E. Hanson, executive vice president, Timberlands. "After careful review, we identified an opportunity to balance our portfolio by selling some acreage to a qualified buyer such as Hancock."

The property being acquired includes approximately 42,000 acres in King County, 63,000 acres in Pierce County, and 18,000 acres in Lewis County. The property's parcels are located in the central and south-central Cascade Mountains.

HTRG will provide on-the-ground services for all of the company's timberland in the Northwest through a wholly owned subsidiary. HTRG will not renew its timberland management contract with Olympic Resource Management when it expires at the end of this year. "We want to integrate our timberland operations in this region with our investment management internally to more efficiently serve investment clients and timber customers," said Christensen. "ORM has provided quality work, and this decision is not related to its performance in any way."

Hancock Timber Resource Group is the world's largest timberland investment management organization for institutional investors with 3 million acres and more than $2.5 billion in assets under management in North America and Australia. Boston-based HTRG is a division of Hancock Natural Resource Group, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of John Hancock Financial Services (NYSE:JHF). John Hancock Financial Services, Inc. and its affiliated companies, including John Hancock Life Insurance Company, provide a broad array of insurance and investment products and services to retail and institutional customers. As of June 30, 2002, John Hancock and its subsidiaries had total assets under management of $123.7 billion.

Weyerhaeuser Company, one of the world's largest integrated forest products companies, was incorporated in 1900. In 2001, sales were $14.5 billion. It has offices or operations in 18 countries, with customers worldwide. Weyerhaeuser is principally engaged in the growing and harvesting of timber; the manufacture, distribution and sale of forest products; and real estate construction, development and related activities. Additional information about Weyerhaeuser's businesses, products and practices is available at www.weyerhaeuser.com.