11 May 2021

The Mormon Global (and Hyper-Local) Business Empire

Let's start off with global and then get real hyper-local

The Mormon Global Business Empire

Holy Holdings

Mormons make up only 1.4 percent of the U.S. population, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is remarkable for its varied business interests, which include cattle ranches, radio stations, an insurance business, a mall, sewage treatment, and a Polynesian theme park. Here's a sampling of some of the church's enterprises.

Selected sectors:
1 Ensign Peak Advisors

Ensign Peak Advisors is an investment fund of the Mormon Church. According to profiles on LinkedIn, managers at Ensign Peak specialize in international equities, cash management, fixed income, quantitative investment, and emerging markets. One of Ensign Peak's vice presidents in 2006 told the Deseret News that "billions of dollars change hands every day."

2 Insurance

The church's Beneficial Life Insurance Company in 2010 had assets worth $3.3 billion and a net income of $17 million, according to the State of Utah Insurance Department

3 Media

The church holding company, Deseret Management, owns several media subsidiaries that run a newspaper, a TV station, 11 radio stations, a publishing and distribution company, and more. Last year, the church sold 17 radio stations for $505 million to better focus on Internet ventures.

 

4 Real Estate

Besides malls, the church's businesses include owning and managing office parks, residential buildings, parking lots, and more.

5 City Creek Center

This March, the Mormon Church opened a megamall across the street from its neo-Gothic temple in Salt Lake City. The estimated cost of the emporium, which features a retractable glass roof and fountains that spew choreographed bouts of water and fire, is $2 billion.

6 Deseret Book

Deseret Book publishes both religious books and books for a "values based audience." The texts often address such topics as faith, family, marriage, or—at the very least—themes as general as the battle between good and evil. The company's general imprint, Shadow Mountain, which sells through Deseret Book stores as well as big box stores like Wal-Mart (WMT), includes titles like Janitors and Fabelhaven.

 

HYPER-LOCAL
A Flash-Back to June 10, 2018: Coulda, Woulda . . . It's A Done Deal
Massive Mesa Mormon Temple Make-Over Plan could transform downtown Mesa- East Valley Tribune Report by Jim Walsh reproduced by Rose Law Group Reporter 
"An extensive renovation of the iconic Mesa Arizona Temple has the potential of becoming a catalyst for the transformation of the city’s downtown. Using Pioneer Park* and the revamped Temple as its anchor, that transformation could attract an unparalleled revival, said Maricopa County Supervisor and East Valley Partnership President Denny Barney.
Iconic figure from Monopoly
“We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in private investment down there,’’ Barney said. “I think this will be a catalyst for future investment. . . " 
RIGHT DENNY! . . . but we'll never know since no financial details were ever revealed.

Blogger Footnote: The original Parks Bond budget approved figure for the renovation of Pioneer Park was $5.9 Million dollars that somehow doubled to $12 Million$ while the eastward Gilbert Road Extension of Valley Metro Light Rail Service was in-progress. One public report stated that the architect for the temple's redevelopment area 'worked with' planners, possibly for the underground installation of city-owned utilities infrastructure.
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Reporter Jim Walsh frames his take on the story like this: (it is) . . . " a classic confrontation between neighborhood revitalization and historic preservation with a landmark of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the center. . . " It's way more than that!
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Here's this report in The Salt Lake Tribune June 7, 2018
THIS WEEK IN MORMON LAND:
Plans for 'City Creek South' Unveiled
(Courtesy Intellectual Reserve Inc.) Plans have been announced to redevelop 4.5 acres of land near the Mesa Arizona Temple. This rendering offers a southeast view of the mixed-use community.
City Creek South? You could call it City Creek South or City Creek Lite.
By David Noyce  ·  Published: 3 days ago Updated: 2 days ago
The real estate investment arm of the LDS Church has announced plans to erect a new mixed-use development near the faith’s Mesa Temple, which is being renovated.
The Utah-based church completed a similar — albeit much larger — project in the heart of Salt Lake City with its City Creek Center.
The

12 January 2020

For-Profit Religion & The Church > Mesa is A Satellite of Salt Lake City

"All of us are very familiar with the non-profit side of the Church with the buildings of Temples, churches, and the missionary program, but most are not familiar with the LDS Church for-profit companies. . .
Many might be surprised to know that the LDS church is the largest non-governmental land owner in the US.
It is not unusual for the Church to buy land. It normally does so through its primary corporate entity, the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . .
the Church builds more square footage in United States than Walmart."
Source: BARE RECORD OF TRUTH
1

14 March 2020

A Cloak of Secrecy Persists @ "City Creek Lite" Under The Guise of "The Grove on Main Street"

Take your pick of whatever city officials here in Mesa, AZ have chosen to call it, but the bare fact remains that NO FINANCIAL DETAILS WERE EVERY DISCLOSED TO THE PUBLIC over the "Temple Area Transformation"
It's one thing to claim an exemption for "a non-profit" status organization but when a for-profit religion is in the business of real estate development - and uses public taxpayers municipal funds to for all the underground infrastructure - it is time way over due to provide both "an abundance of clarity" and accountability.
Especially when development officers in City Creek Reserve, Inc. have stated publicly that they've been talking with city officials for years and buying up more than 90 properties around the Mesa LDS Temple Area neighborhood for a Massive Mormon Make-Over on the eastern fringe of downtown to transform Mesa into a satellite of Salt Lake City.
That's no secret.
It's a smaller-scale 10-acre version of the 23-acre project called City Creek Mall in Temple Square.

< "City Creek Center Lite"@ SEC Main/Mesa Drive

The complaint alleges a series of payments from EPA totaling $1.4 billion to help construct the City Creek Center mall in Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, which features a retractable roof, luxury storefronts and simulated creek with live trout. The LDS Church and its developers aimed to create a new urbanism in downtown Salt Lake City. The success of that expenditure of billions is open to conflicting opinions.



The mall was developed by Property Reserve, Inc., which is a commercial real estate division of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and retail manager Taubman Centers Inc. according to a press release from the LDS Church on Oct. 3, 2006. . .

...City Creek Center is being developed by Property Reserve Inc., the church’s real-estate development arm, and its money comes from other real-estate
ADDENDUM >
> One member of the Corporation of the Presiding Bishopric and an executive in the LDS for-profit businesses, Keith McMullin, told Bloomberg BusinessWeek in 2012 that tithes do not go to the church’s for-profit endeavors and did not go to City Creek Center. 



The whistleblower complaint to the IRS raises the question of whether church leaders such as McMullin made honest or false public statements about financing sources for the mall project both before and after construction of the mall. 
Here in Mesa, apparently no one ever asked - the entire project in two phases that doubled the initial proposal - was fast-tracked through the development process and approval by the Mesa City Council.

When asked about tithe funds being used in the City Creek project contradicting what the church leaders said, LDS Church spokesman Eric D. Hawkins sent language from a church statement that said the City Creek development is a way “the Church enhanced the environs of Temple Square and underscored a commitment to Salt Lake City, Utah, where it is headquartered.” 
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Mormon Inc.
LDS members in the resulting nearly two centuries have founded companies, become elected to federal offices, state and local governments, and control major holdings in finance, insurance, real estate and as well as media.
Here in Mesa, it's a generations-old political machine supported by members of a network of stakes and wards, the public school system, and the police and fire/medical departments.
And, in the early days, LDS Church leaders set up hundreds of businesses in Utah and states like Arizona using "cooperatives" to help build a functioning economy.
Early efforts to force church members to patronize LDS-owned businesses led to the U.S. Congress passing the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887 to limit vertical integration and monopolies by the LDS Church
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Whistleblower Alleges $100 Billion Secret Stockpile By Mormon Church
Paul Glaser

NEW YORK — A whistleblower complaint filed at the Internal Revenue Service in November by a knowledgeable church member alleges that a non-profit supporting organization controlled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints used member tithes to amass more than $100 billion in a set of investment funds and the Church misled members about uses of the money.
 
2 Bloomberg News estimated the net worth of LDS church assets at around $40 billion in 2012. The whistleblower estimates a closer net-worth figure of the church could be $200 billion or more when you include EPA along with vast agricultural and property holdings. 
A church-managed investment portfolio represents a newer area for the church.

When asked to confirm or deny the whistleblower allegation that the Church has amassed more than $100 billion in owned assets under management, the LDS Church spokesman pointed again to online statements from the church such as: 

“The Church’s reserves are overseen by Church leaders and managed by professional advisers, consistent with wise and prudent stewardship and modern investment management principles. Ultimately, all funds earned by the Church’s investments go back to supporting its mission to invite souls to come unto Christ."
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> TIME reported in 1997 that $5.2 billion flowed into the LDS Church in 1996, dwarfing the pace of contributions received by other denominations.
It noted that the LDS Church sees tithes not just as tools for paying church staff and expenses but, rather, as venture capital to build new temples (normal activity for religious organizations) and also to invest in stocks and bonds as well as for-profit companies in agriculture, travel and real estate. . .
 

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