Renee Benson, estranged daughter of billionaire Tom Benson, wrested control away from her father over her late mother’s sprawling estate in a bitter 13-month legal battle that came to a close Friday.

Renee Benson immediately assumed control of the 1980 Shirley Benson Testamentary Trust, valued at around $1 billion. It includes nearly all of San Antonio’s Lone Star Capital Bank, about half of five auto dealerships, a portion of a large ranch near Johnson City, a multimillion-dollar home at Lake Tahoe, an airplane, cash and other real estate.

The trust was set up shortly after Tom Benson’s first wife died but before he bought the NFL Saints and the NBA Pelicans pro sports teams in New Orleans. Renee Benson, who was challenging the competency of her 88-year-old father, has a partial interest in the teams through a separate group of family trusts created in 2009 that are also subject to litigation in a separate case.

With Friday’s settlement, “Tom Benson can enjoy the rest of his life in serenity and be free of all this litigation,” Phillip Wittmann, his lead attorney, said after Friday’s court session. It was a change of heart for the local businessman, whose net worth was estimated at around $2.2 billion by Forbes magazine.

“Tom Benson no longer has any interest in the Shirley Benson trust assets,” Wittmann said. “The settlement is a way to relieve himself of the responsibilities in a rational way.” The only benefit of being trustee was receiving some income from managing the assets, which was taxable, he said.

“He is just walking away from those taxes,” Wittmann said.

Bexar County Probate Court Judge Tom Rickhoff approved the confidential agreement, which was announced Jan. 22 after just two weeks of mediation talks.

Lawyers for the opposing sides congratulated each other Friday afternoon after Rickhoff signed the final order. Rickhoff thanked the lawyers for a settlement he said “was almost shocking in its completeness.”

There’s some outstanding paperwork that remains as part of the settlement, such as reorganizing some of the trust’s assets. The court set a tentative hearing date for March 3 to wrap up the rest of the documentation.

Rickhoff reviewed the settlement terms in private late Thursday afternoon. After approving the agreement, he placed a copy of the secret deal in an envelop and returned it to the lawyers. The confidential terms were not filed with the court, and both sides declined to provide more details.

Rickhoff signed off on the settlement after he was assured that the trust’s “checkbook” would be handed over to Renee Benson from Art Bayern, an estate lawyer who helped manage the trust over the past year.

In February 2015, Rickhoff appointed Bayern and ex-San Antonio Mayor Phil Hard-berger as co-receivers of the Shirley Benson trust after hearing two days of testimony that revealed that Tom Benson had secretly moved millions of dollars of trust funds to a different bank and had relocated some trust records.

Hardberger was dismissed last week as a receiver, and Bayern was discharged Friday, leaving Renee Benson in control.

The settlement includes a “reorganization plan,” the details of which are confidential. Renee Benson’s lawyer, Bennett Stahl, called it a “corporate reorganization,” declining further comment.

Tom Benson remains the majority owner of the holding company for the auto dealerships, with the Shirley Benson trust owning the rest, Wittmann said after the hearing. Three of the dealerships are in San Antonio, and the other two operate in New Orleans.

During the hearing, Wittmann said he wanted assurance that Renee Benson would not take actions at the dealerships “beyond the normal course of business.” Wittmann also said he had heard reports that she threatened to fire auto dealership management and wanted assurances that those would not happen until the “reorganization plan is completed.”

Rickhoff reminded Wittmann that Renee Benson agreed to those terms as part of the settlement.

Renee Benson testified in February 2015 in San Antonio that she and her children, Rita LeBlanc and Ryan LeBlanc, no longer had access to Tom Benson and were essentially blocked from contacting him by his third wife, Gayle Benson.

In late December 2014, Tom Benson had emailed his daughter and grandchildren to tell them that he no longer wanted anything to do with them.

Tom Benson announced a change in succession plans in January 2015, saying he wanted Gayle Benson to inherit his business empire, including the Saints and Pelicans, instead of Renee Benson and her children.

The estrangement led to three lawsuits. Renee Benson also sought control of the sport teams and other New Orleans companies in a separate civil lawsuit in that city last year, claiming that Tom Benson no longer had the mental capacity to change his estate plan.

A federal court in New Orleans ruled in favor of Tom Benson in June.

In a third lawsuit, Tom Benson is suing San Antonio lawyer Robert Rosenthal, who is guardian for a separate group of trusts created in 2009 as part of the family’s estate. Those trusts give Renee Benson and her children nonvoting shares in the sport teams.

Tom Benson now wants to replace the sport teams’ shares with promissory notes that Rosenthal says are worth less than the value of the shares.

That lawsuit, in a federal district court in New Orleans, is in mediation, with a trial date set for June. dhendricks@express-news.net