The Vatican VS Mormon's Business Models: What's the Difference?

 

The Vatican revealed its real estate portfolio for the first time—and it includes over 5,000 properties around the world.

APSA directly administers 4,051 properties in Italy and entrusts to outside companies the administration of some 1,200 properties in London, Paris, Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland, the report said.

The APSA budget synthesis highlighted the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2020 fiscal year, APSA reported a profit of almost 22 million euros ($25.8 million), a significant drop from the profit of 73.21 million euros ($86.3 million) in 2019.

Bishop Galantino, who was tapped by the pope in 2018 to head the office, told Vatican News that despite heavy losses due to lockdowns throughout the year, “prompt and concrete attention” was given to people and, especially, commercial businesses, who occupy buildings owned or managed by APSA.

a) the management of bank accounts;

b) Titles and securities 

c)  Shareholdings in companies and investment funds;

d)  Real estate 

LDS Church discloses the $37.8 billion stock portfolio of its biggest investment fund

For the first time, the LDS Church’s biggest investment fund has disclosed its Wall Street holdings, revealing $37.8 billion in stocks and mutual funds.

The federal filing may be the best answer ever to how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has invested the excess tithing paid by its 16 million members. The detailed list included 1,659 stocks and mutual funds, including household names like Amazon, Chevron and Walmart, that the fund held for the quarter ending Dec. 31.

The investment fund, called Ensign Peak Advisors, quietly submitted the filing Feb. 14 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The stock portfolio appears to represent a large portion of the total value of Ensign Peak, which whistleblowing brothers Lars and David Nielsen said in a complaint sent to the IRS controls assets worth at least $100 billion.

The SEC filing is standard for “institutional investment managers” with assets of at least $100 million.

Ensign Peak Advisors has met that threshold for years, yet the SEC website shows this is the first time the fund has submitted such a filing.

The LDS Church, through a spokesman, declined to answer questions about the recent filing or why it wasn’t submitted before.

“They may have previously read the rules to exempt advisers to religious institutions, and are now disclosing in light of the recent controversy,” said Jeff Schwartz, a University of Utah professor who focuses on corporate and securities law and reviewed the filing for The Salt Lake Tribune.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/03/07/lds-church-discloses/

This filing doesn’t encompass all of the church’s financial holdings. Some assets are held in shell companies that file separately.

In 2018, The Truth and Transparency Foundation, the nonprofit newsroom behind the former MormonLeaks site with a stated mission to disclose information about religions, said it had found 13 such shell companies with assets of $32 billion.

Apple to Zions

Ensign Peak Advisors itself is far larger and more diversified than any of those smaller funds, the Feb. 14 filing shows. About $3 billion of the Ensign Peak Advisors stock holdings — or 7% of the value reported in the filing — was almost evenly split between Apple and Microsoft stock.

Two-thirds of Ensign Peak Advisors’ reported stock holdings came from 100 companies or mutual funds. Of those 100, the plurality of the investment — 26% — was in the technology sector.

The next two biggest sectors were health care, including Johnson & Johnson and Merck stocks; and financial services — stocks such as Bank of America and Berkshire Hathaway.

There also were investments in two Utah-based companies.

The fund reported owning $91.8 million of stock in Zions Bank. That bank can trace its history to a bank founded in 1873 by LDS Church President Brigham Young. The church sold its majority stake in Zions in 1960.

Ensign Peak Advisors also owned $76.7 million of stock in Pluralsight, an online education company based in Farmington.

While the LDS Church owns for-profit insurance and personal investmentbusinesses as well as radio stations and Salt Lake City’s NBC affiliate, KSL-Channel 5, Ensign Peak Advisors invested in those businesses’ competitors. It owned stock in SiriusXM, the three companies that combine to own the local ABC, CBS and FOX affiliates, and in The New York Times Co.

The church counsels its members to not consume tobacco, alcohol or hot caffeinated drinks. And the portfolio reflects that. There were no cigarette or beer manufacturers, nor was there an investment in a coffee chain, such as Starbucks.

Of the 30 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Coca-Cola is the only one Ensign Peak Advisors did not invest in. The fund didn’t own stock in soda makers PepsiCo or Keurig Dr Pepper, either.

Caffeinated sodas are not part of the church’s health code, known as the Word of Wisdom.