Thanks to his acquisition of more than 1 million acres of timberland, Liberty Media chairman John Malone vaulted in the No. 1 spot, unseating his good friend and business partner Ted Turner. Malone readily admits that he got the “land-buying disease” after touring a Turner ranch. In addition to Malone and Turner, other high-profile landowners featured in the 2011 Land Report 100 include Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos at No. 28, hedge fund manager Louis Bacon at No. 45,  and the Hearst family at No. 63.

The cover story features Oklahoma’s Bob Funk, whose Express Ranches is recognized as one of the top seedstock producers in the cattle industry. Readers will journey with Funk to the UU Bar Ranch, a New Mexico landmark that straddles the historic Santa Fe Trail at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

The digital version of The Land Report can be accessed via your laptop, on your iPad or iPhone, with your Blackberry, as well as on your Android.

Click HERE or just type in the following URL: http://read.dmtmag.com/issue/44511

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The Fanjul family ranked No. 61 on the 2010 Land Report 100. Headquartered in Florida’s Palm Beach County, the Fanjuls’ privately owned Florida Crystals is the first (and only) domestic producer of certified organic sugar. The company has a tradition of proactively pursuing eco-friendly production innovations and has worked tirelessly on sustainability initiatives and efforts such as Everglades restoration.

“I love land so much even my hobbies revolve around land. I spend every free weekend at Amistad, my 2,500-acre private shooting preserve,” says J. Pepe Fanjul, company vice chairman, president, and chief operating officer.

“Amistad was honored with the Florida Agriculture Board’s award of excellence for the way we environmentally manage the land. This recognition was truly special to me, because Amistad is the namesake of one of our family’s ranches in my home country Cuba that was lost after the Communist takeover.”

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Liberty Media CEO John Malone goes long on land and buys 1+ million acres of Maine timber.

In late January, networks and newspapers from coast to coast began broadcasting the breaking story of the largest land sale in decades as John Malone acquired more than 1 million acres of Maine timberland — as well as a grove or two in neighboring New Hampshire — from GMO Renewables. The transaction immediately vaulted Malone from his No. 5 position to the top of the Land Report 100, displacing his good friend Ted Turner with a total of 2.2+ million acres.

In the business world, Liberty Media’s chairman enjoys an outstanding reputation as a keen dealmaker. His hometown newspaper, The Denver Post, described him as having “few equals when it comes to structuring complex, hardball financial deals.” Given the multitude of investment options at his disposal, why did Malone park more than $100 million in Maine land?

Malone already had strong ties to Maine. Gary Bahlkow in LandVest’s Portland, Maine, office has been working with the Malones on a variety of timberland investment projects over the last 15 years. While not on the market, LandVest identified the GMO property as a prime target during due diligence.

“We knew GMO had created value by building a very userfriendly property,” Bahlkow says. “They had fresh and very credible inventory data to audit and project forest growth models from. Another consideration was that GMO had worked the operational kinks out of the long-term fiber supply agreement with two IP [International Paper] mills now owned by Verso. First-class forest management on a sustainable basis was essential to John Malone. GMO worked in good faith to make certain that was part of the package.”

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Long before there was The Social Network, there was D.K. Boyd, pictured here with mentor Ted Gray (left) and wife T.J. (center).

Passionate about property rights, Boyd places great value on shared knowledge. “It’s kind of the old cowboy approach to life,” he says. Boyd trades tips with fellow landowners about laws, rules, regulations, and rights, including the rights of oil and gas, pipeline, and utility companies. “We give up 100 percent of the knowledge we have and are pretty bold about asking for theirs. The way I approach it is network, network, network. We tend to migrate toward like-minded individuals and try to distance ourselves from the rest. If they have similar ethics and integrity it’s a beautiful arrangement.”

As a teenager, he recognized the rewards of land ownership doing day work for Fort Stockton-area ranchers. “It allowed me to be exposed to a tremendous amount land in that part of the world and learn a lot about ranching. That’s really where it all started.”

Boyd’s father worked for Exxon. His mother was in the banking business. His mentors were property owners and landowners, including rancher Ted Gray, who was based out of Alpine. Boyd’s favorite read is Barney Nelson’s The Last Campfire, a chronicle of Gray’s decades-long career. “At the time that I was first started getting to know Ted, he owned ranches, banks, and was one of the largest ranchers in the Davis Mountains/West Texas area. That he would take time to work with a young guy like me … you can’t put a value on that. He’s kind of my John Wayne.”

Boyd pieced together his land portfolio with wife T.J. at his side. He acquired the 137,372-acre Frying Pan Ranch in 1996 and the 106,065-acre LE Ranch in 1998. The two cattle operations are among the most historic in West Texas/Southeast New Mexico.

Boyd ranked 34th on the 2010 Land Report 100. His holdings top out at 290,624: 243,664 deeded acres mixed in with some state and private leases. He pursues additional landholdings every day. He and T.J. live part-time at the Frying Pan. She’s involved in office and ranch operations, and son Clay (one of five offspring) deals primarily with surface agreements, pipeline right-of-ways, and environmental assessment.

Boyd subscribes to the Boy Scout approach: “We need to leave something for future generations that’s better than what we have. If someone is a slash-and-burn type operator, coming in and breaking up land and selling it to the highest bidder, or selling off small parcels, they’re not interested in the preservation of the body of the land or environmental and resource development. So there’s really very little we have in common. You have to look at the long-term. Because the land’s going to be there forever.”

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The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has purchased a 33.3% undivided interest in Chesapeake Energy’s 600,000 net oil and natural gas leasehold acres in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. The deal was CNOOC’s first to close in the U.S. since its failed 2005 Unocal bid.

Deal terms included $1.08 billion in cash, plus an additional $40 million payment adjustment at closing. CNOOC has also agreed to fund 75% of Chesapeake’s share of drilling and completion costs up to $1.08 billion, which Chesapeake expects to occur by year-end 2012.

Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon, who also is a Land Report 100er, said , “We are very pleased to have partnered with CNOOC Limited in completing our fifth industry shale development transaction. We look forward to accelerating the development of this large domestic oil and natural gas resource, resulting in a reduction of our country’s oil imports over time, the creation of thousands of high-paying jobs in the U.S. and the payment of very significant local, state and federal taxes.”

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Published reports point to a potential new leader atop The Land Report 100. Colorado’s John Malone, who closed on the 290,100-acre Bell Ranch in August 2010, is scheduled to add an additional 1+ million acres in Maine and New Hampshire to his holdings this week. When added to his existing portfolio of 1.2 million acres, it would be enough acreage to vault him from No. 5 on The Land Report 100 to No. 1, ahead of the Irving Family, Brad Kelley, Red Emmerson, and the current No. 1, Ted Turner.

The story is making national news, including an article by Katherine Seelye in The New York Times titled “For Land Barons, Acres By the Millions.” Wrote Seelye,

John C. Malone, a media mogul who is on the verge of buying nearly one million acres of timberland in Maine, could soon become the largest private landowner in the United States, catapulting him ahead of Ted Turner on the list of those who accumulate earth the way others accumulate, say, bison.

The Times quoted Land Report Editor Eric O’Keefe, who noted that “… when the tabulations are done and this transaction closes, Mr. Malone definitely will be America’s largest landowner.”

According to the Portland Press Herald, Malone’s BBC LLC will acquire 1,004,346 acres belonging to GMO Renewable Resources, a forest investment management company:

“The acquisition will  give Malone ownership of more than 5 percent of Maine’s total land mass of 22 million acres. All but about 30,000 acres of his purchase is in Maine with the remainder in New Hampshire.“

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Our signature study featuring the Top 100 American landowners is the focus of this issue of our monthly newsletter, but it’s just one of the many topics to be covered, including recent sales, upcoming auctions, and important developments by policymakers with regard to owning land.

Feel free to forward the October edition of The Land Report’s monthly newsletter to colleagues as well as those interested in investing in land.

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version by subscription.

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The big move in this year’s top ten is Liberty Media CEO John Malone, whose purchase of the 290,000-acre Bell Ranch this August leapfrogged him ahead of the King Ranch Heirs and the Singleton Family to No. 5 at 1.2 million acres. Thanks to his conservation-minded land ownership, Malone has earned many friends (both two-legged and four-legged) over the years. In an interview on Bloomberg in July, Malone said that his friend Ted Turner was partly his inspiration. “It is sort of a lasting economic asset, and if you are charitably minded and you like conservation, you sort of can do well by doing good,” he said. “I own a lot of land. In fact, Ted and I are neighbors in New Mexico.”

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Table of Contents

Editor’s Note

MarketWatch

FrontGate

Vistas

Feature – 2010 Land Report 100

Land Buyer’s Guide

MarketPlace

Classifieds

Land Report 100 – Dolph Briscoe Jr. (1923-2010)

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Forbes.com bills itself as the “Home Page for the World’s Business Leaders,” and on Monday the website lived up to its moniker by profiling the top ten U.S. landowners as featured in The Land Report 100. Among the many names familiar to Forbes readers were CNN founder Ted Turner at No. 1 and Liberty Media head honcho John Malone at No. 7.

The website also made a point of singling out several notable news items that have recently run at LandReport.com, including Hall and Hall’s recent listing of the 62,000-acre N Bar Ranch in Montana for $45 million and the sale of Colorado’s Boot Jack Ranch by Telluride broker Bill Fandel for $47 million.

Land Report Editor Eric O’Keefe was quoted as describing current market conditions as follows:

“Investors are no longer sitting on the sidelines, and sellers want liquidity.”

Read the entire article HERE.

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