John Kiernan, President & CEO, Alico – Growing Oranges to Growing Communities: How weather and disease forced one of the nation's largest citrus producers to pivot to real estate
Description
In their 125 years in existence, Alico had grown to become one of America's leading citrus producers. In January 2025, owing to adverse weather events and crop disease, they made the difficult decision to wind down their citrus operations and adopt a new real estate-focused business model.
Today, we sit down with John Kiernan, president and CEO of Alico, which trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol ALCO. John has been overseeing Alico's recent efforts to transition out of the citrus industry towards a strategy that makes full use of their extensive holdings in Florida real estate, valued somewhere between 650-750 million dollars.
Going from growing oranges to building communities is no easy feat. John explains how Alico is leveraging their great team, and ample liquidity, to make it work.
Highlights:
- Alico's history (2:10 )
- Alico's land holdings (4:09 )
- Pivot to Real Estate (5:03 )
- Florida Population Growth (6:04 )
- A Diversified Land Company (8:18 )
- Shareholder Returns (10:35 )
- Alico's Identity (12:18 )
- Alico's Role in Development (13:30 )
- Corkscrew Grove (14:53 )
- Regulatory Hurdles (17:22 )
- Entitlements (1945)
- Mitigating Risk (22:18 )
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If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, joe@lowerstreet.co.
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