For-Profit Enterprise Schemes / The Tax-Exempt Mormon Church

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Report: Mormon church investment fund had nearly $38 billion

Updated 2:40 pm CST, Saturday, March 7, 2020

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints' largest investment fund had nearly $38 billion in stocks and mutual funds at the end of 2019, according to a filing that sheds new light on the faith's finances.
The fund called Ensign Peak Advisors submitted a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 14.
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Link > https://www.scribd.com/document/450143097/Ensign-Peak-Advisors-Stock-Holdings 
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The church also owned $930 million in Google stock and $855 million in Amazon.
Mormon Church Moves Public Stock Holdings to Single Entity
Published March 7, 2020 15:03 pm PST
Source > Truth & Transparency

"This morning, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Ensign Peak Advisors, the investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reported a total of $38.7 billion of holdings in the U.S. stock market.

 

Truth & Transparency first reported on this topic in May 2018 by uncovering $32 billion traded by 13 shell companies connected to the Church, and again last month when revealing the increased value of those shell companies as well as venture capital investments made by another shell company connected to the Church.

 

Last month, in another unprecedented move, the Church gave an exclusive interview to the Wall Street Journal discussing the portfolio, admitting to having intentionally obfuscated the paper trail with the shell companies discovered by Truth & Transparency. They feared that members would reduce their tithing donations to the Church.

Today’s story from the Tribune implies that this $38 billion is in addition to the money already reported by Truth & Transparency saying that Ensign Peak’s portfolio is “more diversified than any of those smaller funds.” However, closer analysis of the data suggests otherwise.. .

While it is true that Ensign Peak filed a report with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, none of the other 13 shell companies did, a fact the Tribune originally failed to report.

This suggests that the shares were moved under the known corporate umbrella of the Church, another unprecedented and surprising move.

> This hypothesis is supported by comparing the data from Ensign Peak’s most recent filing and the previous quarter’s filings from the shell companies. The number of entities the Church had invested only grew from 1,646 to 1,650 and the amount of shares traded between the two quarters is largely negligible.

> Additionally, the difference in shares between the two reports could be a result of consolidating other shell companies than the ones currently known. An entity only has to file these public reports if over $100 million is held at the end of the quarter. It is completely possible that the Church has other entities under its corporate umbrella that were not trading at that threshold.

The code used to perform the data analysis for this article can be found here.

In the coming days, Truth & Transparency will be publishing interactive graphs illustrating the known worth of the Mormon Church’s portfolio over time.

This is a tremendous effort with many features planned. If you want to support this work, please consider making a donation today.

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With The Turnaround Over, It Is Now Time To Buy:

Zions Bancorporation National Association (ZION) and Warrior Met Coal Inc. (HCC)

By Samuel Moore - March 6, 2020   https://bovnews.com

ENSIGN PEAK ADVISORS, INC. bought a fresh place in Zions Bancorporation National Association (NASDAQ:ZION).

The institutional investor bought 1.8 million shares of the stock in a transaction took place on 12/31/2019. In another most recent transaction, which held on 12/31/2019, MILLENNIUM MANAGEMENT LLC bought approximately 1.3 million shares of Zions Bancorporation National Association In a separate transaction which took place on 12/31/2019, the institutional investor, CITADEL ADVISORS LLC bought 1.3 million shares of the company’s stock. . .

Having a look at past record, we’re going to look at various forwards or backwards shifting developments regarding ZION.
The firm’s shares fell -11.06 percent in the past five business days and shrunk -22.66 percent in the past thirty business days.
In the previous quarter, the stock fell -25.67 percent at some point.
The output of the stock decreased -9.77 percent within the six-month closing period, while general annual output lost -27.32 percent.
The company’s performance is now negative at -30.47% from the beginning of the calendar year.

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The Mormon Church Amassed $100 Billion.
It Was the Best-Kept Secret in the Investment World.

Wall Street Journal

The Mormon Church Amassed $100 Billion. It Was the
Best-Kept Secret in the Investment World.

Roger Clarke, the head of Ensign Peak Advisors. Photo: Lindsay D'Addato for the Wall Street Journal. Its assets did total roughly $80 billion to ...

1 month ago

The SEC filing is standard for institutional investment managers with assets of at least $100 million but while the church has met that threshold for years, the SEC website does not show any earlier filings by Ensign Peak Advisors. A church spokesman declined to answer questions about why the recent filing was made, the Tribune reported.

The filing does not include all the church's financial holdings and the church is not required to report investments in property or private companies. Ensign Peak Advisors is just one of the church's investment firms, said church historian D. Michael Quinn.

“It's great detail that we haven't had before,”
Quinn said. “But it's only part of the picture.”
The filing comes after a former church investment manager, David Nielsen, said he filed a complaint with the IRS in November alleging the church has improperly built a $100 billion investment portfolio using member donations that are supposed to go to charitable causes. He argues the church owes billions of dollars in taxes and he wants a cut of that as part of a reward the IRS offers whistleblowers.

The IRS has said federal tax laws do not allow it to confirm or discuss any complaints.

After Nielsen went public with his allegation, church officials defended how they use and invest member donations. The vast majority of member donations are used to fund church operations, temples, missions, education and humanitarian needs while another portion is “methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future,” church spokesman Eric Hawkins said in a statement in December.
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The church uses the money donated through tithing to run its operations and sends the excess to Ensign Peak Advisors to invest, the Tribune reported.