20,000 ACRES - HORRY COUNTY

In June 2008, ATC and an Atlanta, GA based Private Equity Fund completed the acquisition of a package of 14 parcels totaling 20,000+ acres near Myrtle Beach in Horry County SC. The investment is comprised of 14 individual parcels, ranging in size from 37 to 6858 acres, each possessing a variety of value components including timber, commercial and residential real estate development opportunities, recreational use and subdivision, extensive conservation opportunities, and aggregate sales. The properties contain upland areas with paved road frontage on primary highways and bottomland hardwood areas with miles of river frontage along the Little Pee Dee and Waccamaw Rivers. ATC has developed a disposition strategy for each parcel to simultaneously manage the value components thus adding value to the tracts prior to future sale. The disposition strategy is implemented by an ATC Project Manager, exclusive to this investment, who will oversee all management activities. The Myrtle Beach and surrounding area is expected to continue to have greater than average population growth creating a higher future demand for the properties and significant investment returns upon disposition.

Three Percent of Horry Trades Hands: Columbia Company Buys 20,000 Acres in County

Thursday, July 17, 2008
Posted: 11:03 AM

Columbia-based land investment company American Timberlands Co. has bought 14 tracts -- amounting to about 20,000 acres -- of Horry County land from International Paper Co.

The tracts are not all adjacent to each other, but are spread out between Longs and Conway, said American Timberlands President Tom Rowland. They include parcels in the Waccamaw River basin, in the Little Pee Dee River basin and along S.C. 90, S.C. 905, S.C. 31 and S.C. 22.

Rowland declined to give specifics about what the company will do with the land.

"We are in the process of developing individual management plans for each tract," he said. "We are going to begin some cleanup work and that kind of thing."

He said that the ecological features on the land were partly what made the land attractive and that it's a long-term investment for the company. Rowland expected the investment return to come "from the management of a number of different value components that exist on the land."

"In general," he said, "value components would be things like timber, aggregate, high-and better-use developable land and conservation easements."

It's too early to say whether plans will involve commercial and residential development, Rowland said, but he didn't rule it out. The company's Web site already lists 2,147 acres of the land for lease for hunting and recreational use.

The 20,000 acres is the company's biggest land investment, but it's not its first local purchase. American Timberlands has 1,150 acres in Brunswick County, N.C., listed for sale on its Web site.

International Paper has been shedding land along the coast for years. IP started the Brunswick Forest and Carolina Forest developments and most recently has pushed for the development of the 6,200-acre Carolina Station development near Loris.

International Paper could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Horry County is about 725,555 acres, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Three Percent of Horry Trades Hands: Columbia Company Buys 20,000 Acres in County. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from TradingMarkets.com: News – Stock News. (The Sun News – McClatchy – Tribune.) Website: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/StockNews/1765663/

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