Alico Maps Shift From Citrus to Florida Land Development at IDEAS Conference

Key Points

• Alico is exiting citrus production after disease and hurricane damage made its groves uneconomical, shifting toward leasing farmland and managing land for future development.
• The company is pursuing entitlements across its 47,300-acre portfolio, including a proposed 4,660-acre Collier County community that could eventually include about 9,000 homes, though state and federal approvals remain pending.
• Alico has generated more than $90 million from agricultural land sales over the past 18 months and is using its liquidity to avoid distressed sales, fund operations and return capital through dividends and share repurchases.

Alico NASDAQ: ALCO outlined its transition from citrus production to a land-management and real estate-entitlement strategy at the Midwest IDEAS Investor Conference, as the Florida-based company seeks to monetize its agricultural acreage while pursuing development approvals for selected properties.

Chief Executive Officer John Kiernan said Alico, which has operated for roughly 130 years and has been public since 1960, owns 47,300 acres across 27 locations in seven Florida counties. The company’s dispersed land portfolio provides operational diversification and gives individual properties different development timelines, he said.

“We’ve now evolved today into basically a modern agricultural company with some residential and commercial real estate aspirations,” Kiernan said.

Exit from citrus production

Alico was previously one of the largest U.S. citrus growers, at one point managing 5.5 million orange trees and serving Tropicana as a major customer, Kiernan said. However, citrus disease weakened the company’s trees, while hurricanes in 2022 and 2024 further damaged production.

By the end of 2024, Alico concluded that orange production was no longer economically viable and elected to exit citrus operations. Kiernan said reduced fruit output was insufficient to cover the company’s fixed costs for maintaining groves and harvesting crops.

The company has since leased much of its agricultural acreage to third-party operators. Current uses include vegetable farming, sod harvesting, cattle ranching and sugar production. Alico also announced in June that 3,200 acres were being leased to a sugar company.

Only a limited portion of the company’s former citrus acreage remains in citrus-related use, Kiernan said. He estimated that operators are continuing citrus salvage or production on roughly 5% to 10% of the company’s acreage, with approximately 3,000 to 4,000 acres remaining after prior tenants did not renew leases because tree conditions deteriorated.

Land-value strategy and development pipeline

Alico has categorized its land into three groups: properties that management believes could be developed within five years, properties that may become developable in five to 15 years, and acreage expected to remain agricultural beyond that period. About 75% of the portfolio, or roughly 33,000 acres, remains in the agricultural category.

Management estimates the present value of Alico’s assets at $650 million to $750 million, using discount rates of 10% to 15%. Kiernan said the company’s market capitalization had been about $200 million when the analysis was initially developed and was about $300 million at the time of the presentation.

The estimate represents entitled land value and does not include infrastructure spending, corporate costs or development expenses, according to Kiernan. He said Alico has not committed to becoming a direct developer and retains the option to sell entitled land, develop it internally or partner with regional or national homebuilders.

The company’s largest development initiative is a proposed master-planned community in northern Collier County, near Naples, on about 4,660 acres. Kiernan said the project could ultimately approach 9,000 residential units, alongside commercial space, open space and community amenities.

Alico received county-level approval for the project’s East Village in April 2026, but still requires state and federal approvals. The state review is focused particularly on water use, while federal approval involves endangered-species considerations overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The proposal includes designating approximately 1,500 acres as Florida panther habitat to connect existing wildlife preserves. Alico also committed $5 million for a wildlife crossing under State Road 82 intended to connect habitat areas. Kiernan said the company expects federal approval could take roughly two years, though timing remains uncertain.

• Bonnet Lake in Highlands County: About 600 acres under local entitlement review for residential use.
• Plant World near LaBelle in Hendry County: About 80 acres that could support approximately 250 homes, pending approvals expected near the end of the year.
• Saddlebag Grove in Polk County: About 240 acres that could support roughly 400 to 450 homes.
• Lake Buffum in Polk County: A 42-acre lakefront property that could be suited for residential development.

Land sales, liquidity and shareholder returns

While pursuing entitlements, Alico has also sold agricultural land selectively. Kiernan said the company completed more than $90 million of agricultural land sales over the past 18 months, at prices exceeding $9,000 per acre. The company had initially modeled agricultural land values at $4,000 to $5,000 per acre and subsequently raised its estimate to $5,000 to $6,000 per acre.

Alico has completed about $34.5 million in land sales so far during the current fiscal year, Kiernan said. Management expects at least $15 million in EBITDA for the full year, a year-end cash balance of approximately $48 million and net debt of roughly $37 million.

For the first nine months, the company reported nearly $24 million of adjusted EBITDA, cash of more than $55 million and net debt of approximately $29 million.

Kiernan said Alico has returned nearly $209 million to shareholders since 2015 through common dividends, debt repayments, a $25 million tender offer and share repurchases. The company recently completed the first $10 million of a planned $50 million share-buyback authorization, he said.

“We are not having a fire sale,” Kiernan said, adding that Alico believes its liquidity gives it flexibility to wait for attractive land-sale opportunities and pursue the highest and best use of its acreage.

About Alico (NASDAQ:ALCO)

Alico, Inc is an agribusiness and land management company headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida. The company owns and manages over 110,000 acres of land in southwestern Florida, with operations focused on citrus groves, sugarcane production, forestry and other row crops. Alico leverages its extensive land holdings to support integrated agricultural and environmental stewardship practices.

In its citrus division, Alico cultivates and markets fresh oranges for both the retail and processing markets, while its sugarcane segment supplies raw cane to domestic sugar mills.

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