Hancock Timber Resource Group to Purchase 79,000 Acres of Timberland in Louisiana

BOSTON, March 22, 2004 -- Hancock Timber Resource Group (HTRG) announced today that it plans to purchase approximately 79,000 acres of timberland located in western Louisiana for approximately $84 million from Boise Cascade Corporation. The transaction is expected to close by March 31, 2004. The timberland is located in several parcels between Lake Charles and Shreveport.

Hancock Timber Resource Group manages approximately 1.5 million acres of timberland in the Southern United States. It is the world's largest timberland investment management organization for institutional investors, with approximately $2.8 billion and more than 2.8 million acres under management in North America and Australia as of December 31, 2003.

HTRG is a division of Hancock Natural Resource Group, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of John Hancock Financial Services. 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 December 31, 2003, John Hancock and its subsidiaries had total assets under management of $142.5 billion.

Boise, headquartered in Boise, Idaho, provides solutions to help customers work more efficiently, build more effectively, and create new ways to meet business challenges. It owns or controls more than 2 million acres of timberland, primarily in the United States, to support its manufacturing operations. Boise had sales of $8.2 billion in 2003.