Lanai, Hawaii’s sixth-largest island with an area of 141 square miles (365 square kilometers), is owned and developed by billionaire David Murdock’s Castle & Cooke Inc. since 1985. Ellison’s software industry rival Bill Gates married his wife Melinda on the island in 1994.
The sale includes two resort hotels, two championship golf courses and club houses, more than 88,000 acres of land including a 600-acre residential development, a solar farm, parks and utilities, according to an application filed by Castle & Cooke with Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission requesting interim approval for the sale by June 26 so it can close the transaction the following day.
No price was disclosed. The transaction is valued in the “hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to the application to the commission. In a statement, Murdock, 89, said he would keep his home on the island and retain rights to develop a wind energy farm there.
Ellison is the world’s sixth-richest man, with an estimated net worth of $36.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Gates is the second-richest man with a fortune of $62 billion.
The island has 47 miles of coastline and is accessible from neighboring islands by helicopter and small planes. It has no stoplights and 93 percent of the 430 miles of roads are unpaved. More than 3,200 residents live there and about 26,000 tourists visited the island in the first quarter of this year, according to the state.
The island has 47 miles of coastline and is accessible from neighboring islands by helicopter and small planes. It has no stoplights and 93 percent of the 430 miles of roads are unpaved. More than 3,200 residents live there and about 26,000 tourists visited the island in the first quarter of this year, according to the state.
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