AUGUSTA, Maine — A company with ties to media mogul John Malone is set to purchase nearly 1 million acres of Maine forestland.
Under a deal slated to be completed Tuesday, BBC Land will purchase more than 900,000 acres — much of it in eastern and western Maine — from current owner GMO Renewable Resources.
John Cashwell, a consultant for BBC Land, declined to name the individuals behind BBC Land but described them as “a family from away with ties to Maine” committed to keeping it a working forest. He also declined to name a purchase price.
“This is not a short-term play,” Cashwell said. “It’s a family that is in it for the long term.”
But documents filed last week with the Maine secretary of state’s office listed Malone as the only manager for BBC Land.
Malone is chairman of Liberty Media, a Douglas County-based company with diverse media interests that include the cable channel QVC, the travel website , the Atlanta Braves baseball team and Sirius XM satellite radio.
Cashwell said very little will change under the new ownership. BBC Land will continue to manage the land as a working forest and will still allow public access for recreation, Cashwell said.
BBC Land plans to maintain the land’s certification as sustainably managed forestland. There also will be no change to the long-term contracts that guarantee a wood supply to Verso Paper’s mills in Jay and Bucksport.
“Pretty much the only thing changing is the name of the company that owns it,” Cashwell said Monday in an interview with the Bangor Daily News.
Ranked No. 110 on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, Malone also has emerged as one of the country’s largest individual private landowners in recent years. Malone was No. 5 on a list of the Top 100 landowners in the U.S. in 2010 that was published by The Land Report magazine.
