23AR28-28
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AR 28:28 - "The largest treasure held by any religious fund"?
In this issue:
MORMONISM - Is that an LDS leadership hand in the cookie jar?
+ CBS 60 Minutes whistleblower concerned about $100+ billion
+ A lot of money comes with a lot of temptation for LDS leadership
+ "LDS global rule" will require a lot more than a lot of cash
Apologia Report 28:28 (1,625)
August 3, 2023
MORMONISM
"LDS Church has dodged hard questions of accountability" by Patrick Hardy, Ph.D. candidate in sociology, University of Iowa; second counselor in his LDS ward bishopric -- "When news broke in February that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had made extensive, yearslong efforts to obscure the size of its $32 billion investment portfolio in violation of U.S. tax law, the church responded <www.bit.ly/47iptf2> with a terse press release. ...
"Seemingly confirming the closed-ness of the matter, the church's auditing report in the last General Conference <www.bit.ly/3qeWjga> made no mention of the settlement with the SEC nor the $5 million fine leveled against the church and its investment arm, Ensign Peak." <www.bit.ly/3qe2G39>
Hardy observes that "no part of the church's response evinced any self-accountability about why better policies didn't exist to require the reporting of abuse in the first place, why it continues to lobby against reforms to clergy-penitent privilege (which exempt religious leaders from reporting abuse learned in confessional settings), and what changes will be made to prevent similar tragedies in the future. ...
"Too frequently, the church's structure and operations seem to prioritize image control and the avoidance of negative consequences." (Salt Lake Tribune, May 4 '23) <www.bit.ly/3KcIg18>
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"Mormon who left Wall St. to work for charity blows whistle on what he says is his church's 'clandestine hedge fund'" by Sharyn Alfonsi (60 Minutes - CBS NEWS, May 14 '23) -- "David Nielsen says that during his nine years managing money at the church firm, the value of its investments ballooned past $100 billion. That would make it the largest treasure held by any religious fund in America. But instead of spending that money to do good, David Nielsen alleges it was used in ways that bent the law ... and broke his faith. ...
"Those funds weren't used the way they were appropriated to be used," said Nielsen.
"David Nielsen was a senior portfolio manager for the investment arm of the church, called Ensign Peak Advisors. ...
"Nielsen says he grew troubled by what he saw at Ensign Peak. He says the firm used false records and statements to masquerade as a charity, stockpiling money and misleading church members. ...
"Because Ensign Peak is registered as a nonprofit, it all grows tax-free.
"David Nielsen says since it was created in 1997, the reserve fund has swelled beyond $100 billion - twice the size of Harvard's endowment or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
"Nielsen says one of his bosses shared [a] document at a meeting that showed $1.4 billion from the fund went to a mall being built on land owned by the church and $600 million was used to prop up a for-profit church-owned insurance company called Beneficial Life. [Ironic identity construct, that.] ...
"David Nielsen says he hit his breaking point in 2018 after a website called 'Mormonleaks' <mormonleaks.io> linked church members to companies that existed only on paper. Those shell companies held billions of dollars in stocks and bonds.
"What nobody knew outside church leadership was those assets were actually controlled by Ensign Peak. Nielsen says the firm called an emergency meeting. ...
"The chief investment officer said that if we were to change and start reporting these securities in our own name, it would bring undue attention to the firm. And that that attention would be potentially damaging. And after the meeting I went and confronted him. 'What do you mean potentially damaging?' And he said 'Dave, we are gonna lose our tax-exempt status.' I knew in that moment that I was in the wrong place. ...
"SEC investigators found the church 'went to great lengths' to hide $32 billion in securities over nearly 20 years. It created 13 shell companies that were '...assigned a local phone number that would go directly to voicemail' in case regulators checked in."
David Nielsen: "Here they had these back-office accountants, who had never bought a bond or sold stock a day in their life, signing signatory pages for a portfolio that didn't exist.
"The SEC fined the church and Ensign Peak a total of $5 million. Bishop Christopher Waddell told us it was the church's lawyers who advised them to create the shell companies. ...
"Money's going in and out of the cash accounts all the time. But Ensign Peak's funds were never used for any charitable purpose....
"David Nielsen says honesty is a tenet of the faith. He wants Ensign Peak Advisors to pay the taxes he says it owes on the $100 billion built from tithing. If the IRS decides Nielsen is right, he could be rewarded with up to 30% of what's collected. The IRS does not comment on whistleblower complaints.
"Sharyn Alfonsi: Why are you speaking now?
"David Nielsen: It's time, Sharyn. We gave the IRS and the SEC all the professional courtesy. This is just too important to fall through the cracks." <www.bit.ly/3Q8NaAc>
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"6 things we now know (maybe) about the LDS church's wealth" by Jana Riess (Religion News, May 16 '23) <www.bit.ly/44H4ZLk> -- "In an interview on '60 Minutes,' Nielsen recounted a culture of secrecy at the highest levels - a charge disputed by a member of the church's presiding bishopric, who also granted an interview. ...
"The '60 Minutes' segment repeats the original complaint's assertion that the church's investments aren't being used for charitable purposes. In fact, Nielsen claimed they are not used for much at all, other than to multiply the nest egg.
"An IRS chief counsel representative who was interviewed in the segment seemed to side with Nielsen, saying [Ensign Peak Advisors'] funds were like 'the Hotel California,' meaning that once the money checked in, it never checked out. ...
"The EPA's wealth may now be in the realm of $150 billion."
Riess notes that "the church's top five holdings [are] in Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (the parent company of Google), United Health and Amazon." ("The Wall Street Journal says there are prominent hedge funds as well.")
Specifically, "in the past two years the church gave nearly $2 billion to charitable projects, whereas it reported giving $2.5 billion over the previous 35 years put together.
"That's either a) an astonishing and welcome increase over a short period of time; b) an apples-to-oranges comparison because one entity is LDS Charities and the other is the church itself; or c) an indication that the church has recently changed the way it counts charitable contributions."
Riess adds that "it appears that volunteer labor might indeed be quantified in some way to reach that $1.02 billion figure. ...
"It also appears that the church is quantifying its own in-house assistance programs that help members only...."
Riess reports that "the only monetary donations to outside charities that I see mentioned in the report add up to $63.9 million" and, she itemizes the entries.
Further, she writes that, "(Once again, a commitment to complete and regular financial transparency would go a long way here.) But from the report's own information it seems that $63.9 million may be the real number, or closer to the real number, of what the church donated in cash to charity. ...
"But it is a very far cry from a billion dollars in charitable expenditures." <www.bit.ly/43JjYmq>
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"Saving for when Latter-day Saints run the world?" by James Sawyer (Salt Lake Tribune, Jun 2 '23) -- "Recently, David A. Nielsen appeared on '60 Minutes' to explain his actions. He worked as investment adviser for Ensign Peak and then four years ago became a government informer. ..
"One wonders then about the mission of the Utah-based church? What is it and why aren't surpluses used immediately to pay for current programs?
"Is it possible church leaders are preparing for a future event when they believe surpluses will be needed to fulfill some sort of prophetic mission? Indeed, could it be a so-called end times strategy? Could church leaders be using invested, untaxed tithing surpluses to prepare for how future generations of Latter-day Saints will run our world? ...
"To go deeper, a serious reader might investigate LDS Church-related publications, including 'Mormon Doctrine' by Bruce R. McConkie. His second edition was released in 1966, six years before his elevation to Latter-day Saint apostle.
"McConkie describes how the world will end according to a doctrinal LDS scenario. ...
"Throughout, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reigns as the kingdom of God on earth, according to McConkie. It is the church hierarchy that exercises secular as well as ecclesiastical dominion over all of the Earth's creatures and inhabitants. The church's leadership will be in charge, globally.
"One wonders. Is this some sort of concealed mission for which Ensign Peak Advisors is accruing unreported surpluses, under direction of church leadership? ...
"Humility holds the promise of pulling Latter-day Saints - indeed all of us - back from the brink of pseudo-realities and haughty self-righteous aggrandizements. It can pull us also away from being certitude-confident (state of mind that is free of doubt) that one's belief about how the world is perceived to work, or end, aligns identically with how the world works, in actuality."
Sawyer concludes: "This, I propose, should be the mindset of the LDS Church and the investment work done for it by those designated as Ensign Peak Advisors." <www.bit.ly/3Ot9K5t>
This story is still warming up:
* - "LDS Church could be a $1 trillion denomination by 2044, report suggests" <www.bit.ly/3s0mt6B>
* - Revised LDS "estimated wealth of $236 billion in 2022" <www.bit.ly/3DFqPmp>
* - (See the NEW 24-page detailed graphic series at the top of the page) <www.bit.ly/3KlAtyn>
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