Lake Wales real estate company Atlantic Blue Group has announced it will sell its assets and go out of business. These assets had been formed from the estate of the late citrus baron Ben Hill Griffin Jr. and include the agribusiness and real estate firm Alico Inc. based in Fort Myers.

The Griffin heirs said they decided to make the sale due to the upcoming expiration of a tax break that had exempted Chapter S companies from paying federal corporate tax. The tax increase is part of Congress' recent fiscal cliff package, the Lakeland Ledger said.

Alico Inc. owns 130,400 acres of primarily agricultural land across the state. The family had controlled 3.7 million shares of the company, the Ledger said, which is slightly more than half of the total.

The family will also sell three of its properties that are not part of Alico. These are: Blue Head Ranch and Blue Head Farms, which occupy about 65,000 acres in Highlands and DeSoto counties, and the 490-acre Tri-County Grove in Highlands County, the Ledger said. Two Winter Haven hotels and a trucking and warehouse company are also part of the assets for sale.

Griffin Jr. died in 1990 and Atlantic Blue was formed in 2004 after a lawsuit was settled between his heirs. At the time of his death, his estate was worth $300 million, the Ledger said.