The third-richest man in America, Oracle Corp. co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison, has completed his acquisition of Lanai, seller Castle & Cooke Inc. said Thursday.

“It is very gratifying to me personally to see Lanai now in the hands of Larry Ellison, a very committed individual who will bring his ideas and energy to sustain the beauty and heritage of Lanai,” David Murdock, Castle & Cooke CEO, said in a news release. “My time on Lanai, known as the pineapple island, has been enjoyable and inspiring. I have devoted 28 years in shepherding Lanai’s transformation into a world-class tropical paradise.”

Murdock did not disclose the sale price for the deal, which included two Four Seasons resort hotels with adjacent golf courses and roughly 88,000 acres or 98 percent of the island.

Maui County property tax records released Thursday placed the assessed value of the land at $325 million. In an earlier filing with the state, Castle & Cooke said the transaction would be worth “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Castle & Cooke first acknowledged the island was being sold on June 20 in a filing with the state Public Utilities Commission. On Monday the PUC gave interim approval for the transfer of three Lanai utilities to Ellison. Castle & Cooke had asked for the quick approval, saying if the sale did not close by Wednesday, the deal might fall through.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie, speaking at a news conference on the U.S. Supreme Court’s health care ruling, said he is optimistic about the future of Lanai.

“Every indication that I’ve had to this point is that Mr. Ellison and his associates … are very anxious to create a good impression based on being responsive to the needs of the people of Lanai and the island itself,” said Abercrombie, adding that Ellison has agreed to invest $10 million in Lanai’s water and waste-water systems over the next five years. “I’m sure that the sale of the island which has been completed today will give us an opportunity to go into a new era.”

The large property sale will not result in a tax windfall for the state if it was structured as a sale of a business that owns land rather than a simple land transaction.

Unlike most real estate transactions, the sale of an entity that owns land may not be subject to conveyance taxes in Hawaii.

Nicki Ann Thompson, registrar for the Bureau of Conveyances, said Thursday the state hasn’t recorded a conveyance for the land.

“If there isn’t a record of the land, the sale could have been of an entity that owns the land,” said University of Hawaii law professor Randy Roth. “Normally when land is sold, a conveyance tax has to be paid, but in this case, if it was the entity that was sold, the conveyance tax would not apply.”

Murdock, 89, still has ties to Lanai. He is keeping his home on Lanai and has retained the rights to develop a controversial wind farm project that could feed power via undersea cable to Oahu.

Ellison, 67, has remained silent on his plans for the island with its population of roughly 3,000, many of whom are employed by the hotels and golf courses he now owns.

Theories abound as to what Ellison may do with it.

“There’s always a chance that the new owner may, after several months or even a year, look over the whole picture and just say there’s not much here you can do,” said David Truong, 50, who’s lived on Lanai for nearly a decade and works for Castle & Cooke’s transportation department. “We think that what he may do is a flip sale to somebody else, make $100 million by owning it for a year, because there’s not much more you can do that Murdock hasn’t done.”

For decades, Lanai’s close-knit community has lived in a single-industry town, with tourism overshadowing — and then replacing altogether — a once-thriving pineapple industry originally started in 1922 when James Dole purchased Lanai for $1.1 million to establish the world’s largest pineapple plantation.

Generations of Lanaians have been solely dependent on a single landowner, which has caused some angst and instability among the community.

“Having one person own 98 percent of the island is very medieval. It’s a feudal system and it’s been that way here since the 1850s,” said Robin Kaye, spokesman for Friends of Lanai, a nonprofit created to oppose wind power.

Matt Glickstein, a 28-year-old schoolteacher who moved to Lanai four years ago with his wife, Kerri, agreed: “It’s really weird; it’s not like a democracy,” he said. “It’s like a king — whatever he wants to do, you kind of have to go with it.”

The hope of many is that whatever Ellison does it doesn’t change the small-town character that Lanai residents enjoy.

“It’s stepping back 30 years in time,” said Maggie Masicampo, 68, director of the Lanai Senior Center, who’s lived on the island for 25 years. “There’s no stoplights. Your children are safe. If an old man is walking down the middle of the road, you would never think of honking your horn. You just wait until he gets off the road. I would like to see (the new owner) put more time into taking it back to old Hawaii.”