The donation would be a huge coup for one of the two land-rich finalists, which the regents had whittled down from among two dozen contenders in an arduous, eight-month process. Both had big holdings surrounding the land they were offering the state. Whoever was chosen would see his neighboring acreage develop in 10 years instead of 30, into technology parks and upscale housing instead of mini-storage units and ranchettes.
One contender, corporate giant Westinghouse, offered what seemed the better site: 560 acres near the Southwest Florida International Airport with connecting roads already built to I-75. The other, Alico, a Florida agribusiness firm headed by Ben Hill Griffin III, was pushing an isolated 760 acres of forested wetlands to the south.
More than Alico's health was at stake for Griffin. He was still trying to fill the huge boots of his father, the legendary Florida citrus baron and philanthropist, Ben Hill Griffin Jr., who had died two years earlier at 79. Griffin III had taken over as CEO of the private family corporation, Ben Hill Griffin Inc., and also had assumed leadership of Alico, the public company his father had built. A hard driver, Griffin III already had proven himself a savvy businessman. But a legend he was not.
That changed in a split second. Sensing that the regents were leaning toward Westinghouse, Griffin decided, on the spot, to sweeten Alico's bid by offering an additional $3 million to fund endowed professorships for the new university. Westinghouse executives cried foul as the regents accepted Griffin's offer.
"I was up there feeling like it was impossible odds," says Griffin. "Westinghouse had brought in a TV screen as big as the room to talk to the regents and the rest of 'em, and it was just me up there. But my board had given me carte blanche decision-making ability, and I guess I got caught up in the magnanimity."
The biggest beneficiaries of that magnanimity may prove to be Alico's stockholders. As Florida Gulf Coast University grows and adjacent cattle lands are bulldozed for development, Alico's 10,000 acres around the university are skyrocketing in value; in some cases, from $5,000 an acre to upward of $90,000. In May, when the financial newsweekly Barron's reported that Alico's land holdings were undervalued, the company's stock shot up from $18.55 to $28.64 in one day. Shares (Nasdaq-ALCO) continue to trade around $28.
A legacy of his own
Griffin, meanwhile, can bask in both his father's legacy and his own. Alico's donation of land and cash to FGCU, along with Griffin's personal donations to that campus and his and his father's to the University of Florida, makes the family the most generous in the history of the state's public universities. Just as his father's name towers over Gainesville in 8-foot-tall letters atop the stadium where the Florida Gators play football, Griffin III is the namesake for the central highway leading to FGCU and for the school's main academic hall.
At 59, Griffin seems to have attained the stature as both CEO and philanthropist that he long aspired to. But at the top of his game, Griffin also is in the middle of one of the worst years of his life.
Usually a wily backslapper who loves to spin tales for visitors to the colonial brick home that serves as BHG Inc.'s headquarters in Frostproof, Griffin appeared chastened during a recent interview, his face worn. A conversation with him in the company's paneled conference room, filled with relics of Florida and appreciative plaques from UF and FGCU, is a series of long pauses and awkward silences. He finds it difficult to respond to some questions. Others, he says, he simply doesn't know the answer to at all.
Family feud
A feud with his four sisters is only the most public of Griffin's torments. They sued Griffin last year, claiming he had habitually breached his fiscal duties to his extended family as trustee of the empire that his father left to the five children. The essence of their claims: Griffin has been running the business a bit too much like his father -- as if he's sole owner rather than one of five. The sisters -- Harriett Harris, Sarah Jane Alexander, Lucy Anne Collier and Francie Milligan -- declined to be interviewed for this article. But filings and depositions in the suit detail their beef with their brother. They say Griffin set about to weaken their control over the family business within months of their father's death -- when he persuaded his mother to sell him her voting shares of BHG Inc.
BHG Inc. is a private family corporation that owns controlling shares of LaBelle-based Alico, a spinoff of Atlantic Coast Line Railroad formed in 1960 as the Atlantic Land Improvement Co. Railroad officials wanted to make money off Atlantic Coast Line's vast land holdings that weren't being used for the rails. They asked Griffin Jr. to serve on the board of the new company to help it break into citrus, cattle and timber. In 1972, the cracker millionaire traveled to New York City and bought concentrated control of Alico for $15.9 million in a private, hidden bid.
Griffin Jr. ran BHG Inc. and Alico until he died in 1990. That year, Forbes estimated his personal wealth at $300 million. Along the way, in addition to grooming Griffin III to take over, Griffin Jr. hired sons-in-law and grandchildren for various posts. His will created a trust, which divided the voting shares equally among all five children, that was to remain in five equal shares until all died.
The sisters say that split shows that Griffin Jr. didn't intend for any one of his heirs to grab control of the family's companies. In their lawsuit, they claim Griffin III ignored his father's intentions in all sorts of ways. In addition to steering their mother's shares of BHG Inc. into his own hands, the sisters say, Griffin III systematically fired or forced out every member of the plaintiffs' families whom Griffin Jr. had hired.
At the same time, Griffin promoted his son, Ben Hill Griffin IV, known as "Hill." The 33-year-old Hill is widely described as sweet-natured and more introspective and reserved than his namesakes. His good looks come from his mother's family, which boasts an impressive military bloodline: His great uncle was captain of the U.S.S. Missouri during World War II. This summer, Hill was named president of BHG Inc. after running the company's fresh fruit and harvesting divisions for the past three years.
In addition to claiming that Griffin III pushed aside their family members in favor of his own, the sisters complain that he used his position as trustee to take over -- and take salaries from -- BHG Inc., Alico and Orange-co, a citrus company Griffin III bought in 1992. They claim he was paid about $5 million more than he deserved between 1990 and 2000. And when he arranged for the sale of Orange-co to Pasco Acquisition in 1999, they say Griffin III again used his position to land a personal $2 million "non-competition and consulting agreement" that they say should have gone to the trust.
Father's wishes?
Griffin III points out that his father made him sole trustee. "It's all a matter of my sisters not being aware of the business. They're all good ladies," he says. "It's just that they weren't interested, and they don't understand it." Depositions in the case indicate that's just how Griffin Jr. raised his daughters. "Dad didn't include the girls in business," Lucy Collier testified.
Griffin III clearly believes he's the expression of his father's will. Papers filed by his lawyer assert that his father "was the chief executive officer of each and every one of the corporations he owned during his lifetime, and he intended that his son would operate these businesses exactly as he had." Says Griffin: "Dad certainly wasn't interested in Ben Hill Griffin Inc. being run by a committee."
Company insiders who know both men well, including Alico President and COO Bernard Lester, the former head of the Florida Citrus Commission who went to work for the Griffins in the 1980s, agree that the management styles of Griffin Jr. and Griffin III are remarkably similar. "The businesses were a game to them that they really enjoy playing and that they're really good at playing," Lester says. "It's all business. It's on their minds 24 hours a day because it's so enjoyable."
Griffin's best defense may be his companies' success: Alico and BHG Inc. have become more and more profitable over the past decade. In addition to intensifying development of Alico's land holdings, Griffin has led Alico to expand its citrus and sugar cane operations. While it peels off real estate holdings in Lee County, the company focuses on agribusiness in Polk, Hendry and Collier counties. Forty-year board member Lloyd Hendry says Griffin III has led Alico to strike a balance that has made it more profitable than similar agribusiness companies, without becoming a development company.
The lawsuit went to trial in March. After three days of testimony, the two sides settled, although it could be six months until the details are hashed out. The 15 plaintiffs include the four sisters' children, one of whom, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, hired her own lawyer and disputed the settlement terms for a time. "The plaintiffs are a couple of generations, 15 people, in four states and two countries," says the sisters' lawyer, Robin Gibson of Lake Wales. "It's been very painful for them and for everybody."
The settlement agreement calls for the breakup of BHG Inc. and the termination of the family trust. Some $250 million in assets -- including a 62,000-acre ranch and controlling interest in Alico -- will be transferred to a new company to be owned by the sisters and other plaintiffs.
Coming to terms
The settlement leaves unclear Griffin's future with Alico. Meanwhile, since facing his sisters in court, Griffin's problems have continued to mount. In April, he and his wife, Dorothy, separated after 36 years of marriage. In May, he was charged with DUI after he and a woman driving his Lincoln Navigator were pulled over near Lake Wales. Prosecutors dropped the charges, determining Griffin had gotten behind the wheel only to make a phone call while his companion was arrested.
In June, Griffin issued a statement that he was taking a leave of absence for medical treatment at Johns Hopkins "not related to a life-threatening illness." After an extensive medical evaluation in Baltimore, Griffin says, he checked himself into the Betty Ford Center in California, where he remained for four weeks for alcohol abuse treatment. Drinking, he says, had increasingly become a problem in the 11 years since his father's death.
He says he's been able to stay away from alcohol since returning to Florida, and he hopes to stay sober. "I'm more energized than I've ever been. I have more confidence, and I'm taking more time to look at the decisions that I've got to make."
Griffin says he hopes to patch things up with his wife. He will not comment on the specific terms of the settlement nor on his future role in Alico. It's a question he simply doesn't know the answer to, he insists -- even though he has bought nearly 22,000 shares of Alico stock since March, most of that at the higher prices spurred by the Barron's article.
Griffin makes no apologies for the way he's run the family businesses. While he acknowledges alcohol had an impact on both his personal and professional life, he points to his companies' financial success over the past 10 years and says the bottom line is what matters. "You don't make every decision 100% correct all the time, but neither did my dad. It's been fun. It's been hard work. It was a great project, and it's still a great project."