Hancock Timber Resource Group Acquires Georgia Timberlands

BOSTON, June 26, 2003 - Hancock Timber Resource Group (HTRG) today successfully closed its acquisition of 55,000 acres of timberland from Blue Sky Timber Properties LLC, a subsidiary of International Paper. The property is located in southeastern Georgia in Appling and Wayne counties.

HTRG currently manages approximately 1.5 million acres of timberland in the South, and is the world's largest timberland investment management organization for institutional investors, with $3 billion and more than 3.2 million acres 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 March 31, 2003, John Hancock and its subsidiaries had total assets under management of $130.4 billion.