Latter- day Lucre By Caroline Winter Illustration by Labour How the Mormon Church Makes Its Billions ate last March the leadership and now heads a church-owned Mormon theology specifically denies that Mormon Church com- holding company, Deseret Management Corp. there is such a distinction.” To Latter- day pleted an ambitious proj- (DMC), an umbrella organization for many of Saints, opening megamalls, operating a ect: a megamall. Built for the church’s for-profit businesses. “We look to billion-dollar media and insurance conglom- roughly $2 billion, the not only the spiritual but also the temporal, erate, and running a Polynesian theme park City Creek Center stands and we believe that a person who is impover- are all part of doing God’s work. Says Quinn: directly across the street ished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” “In the Mormon [leadership’s] worldview, from the church’s iconic McMullin explains that City Creek exists to it’s as spiritual to give alms to the poor, as neo-Gothic temple in combat urban blight, not to fill church coffers. the old phrase goes in the Biblical sense, as SaltL Lake City. The mall includes a retractable “Will there be a return?” he asks r hetorically. it is to make a million dollars.” glass roof, 5,000 underground parking spots, “Yes, but so modest that you would never and nearly 100 stores and restaurants, ranging have made such an investment—the real return Mormons make up only 1.4 percent of the from Tiffany’s to Forever 21. Walkways link the comes in folks moving back downtown and the U.S. population, but the church’s holdings open-air emporium with the church’s perfect- revitalization of businesses.” Pausing briefly, he are vast. First among its for-profit enter prises ly manicured headquarters on Temple Square. adds with deliberation, “It’s for furthering the is DMC, which reaps estimated annual rev- Macy’s is a stone’s throw from the offices of the aim of the church to make, if you will, bad men enue of $1.2 billion from six subsidiaries, ac- church’s president, Thomas S. Monson, whom good, and good men better.” cording to the business information and anal- Mormons believe to be a living prophet. It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mormonism, ysis firm Hoover’s Company Records. Those On the morning of its grand opening, thou- an indigenous American religion, would also subsidiaries run a newspaper, 11 radio sta- sands of shoppers thronged downtown Salt adopt the country’s secular faith in money. tions, a TV station, a publishing and distri- Lake, eager to elbow their way into the stores. What is remarkable is how varied the church’s bution company, a digital media company, a The national anthem played, and Henry B. business interests are and that so little is known hospitality business, and an insurance busi- Eyring, one of Monson’s top counselors, told about its financial interests. Although a former ness with assets worth $3.3 billion. the crowds, “Everything that we see around us Mormon bishop is about to receive the Repub- AgReserves, another for-profit Mormon is evidence of the long-standing commitment lican Party’s presidential nomination, and de- umbrella company, together with other of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day spite a recent public-relations campaign aimed church-run agricultural affiliates, reportedly Saints to Salt Lake City.” When it came time to at combating the perception that it is “secre- owns about 1 million acres in the continen- cut the mall’s flouncy pink ribbon, Monson, tive,” the LDS Church remains tight-lipped tal U.S., on which the church has farms, flanked by Utah dignitaries, cheered, “One, about its holdings. It offers little financial hunting preserves, orchards, and ranches. two, three—let’s go shopping!” transparency even to its members, who are re- These include the $1 billion, 290,000-acre Watching a religious leader celebrate a quired to tithe 10 percent of their income to Deseret Ranches in Florida, which, in ad- mall may seem surreal, but City Creek gain access to Mormon temples. dition to keeping 44,000 cows and 1,300 reflects the spirit of enterprise that an- The Mormon Church is hardly the only re- bulls, also has citrus, sod, and timber oper- imates modern-day Mormonism. The ligious institution to be less than forthcom- ations. Outside the U.S., AgReserves oper- 42 mall is part of a sprawling church-owned ing about its wealth; the Catholic Church has ates in Britain, Canada, Australia, Mexico, corporate empire that the Mormon been equally opaque throughout history. Argentina, and Brazil. Its Australian prop- leadership says is helping spread its On the other hand, says historian D. Michael erty, valued at $61 million in 1997, has message, increasing economic self- Quinn, who is working on a book about the estimated annual sales of $276 million, ac- reliance, and building the Kingdom of LDS Church’s finances andbusine sses, “The cording to Dun & Bradstreet. God on earth. “The Church of Jesus Christ Mormon Church is very different than any The church also runs several for- profit real of Latter-day Saints attends to the total needs other church. … Traditional Christianity and estate arms that own, develop, and manage of its members,” says Keith B. McMullin, Judaism make a clear distinction between malls, parking lots, office parks, residential who for 37 years served within the Mormon what is spiritual and what is temporal, while buildings, and more. Hawaii Reserve, for ex- ample, owns or manages more than 7,000 acres on Oahu, where it maintains commer- cial and residential buildings, parks, water and sewage infrastructure, and two cemeter- Holy Holdings ies. Utah Property Management Associates, a real estate arm of the church, manages por- An organizational guide to the church’s businesses tions of City Creek Center. According to Spen- cer P. Eccles from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, the mall cost the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church an estimated $2 billion. It is only one part of a $5 billion church-funded revamping of downtown Salt Lake City, according to the Mormon-owned news site KSL. “They run Intellectual Polynesian Corporation of Deseret Education their businesses like businesses, no bones Reserve, overseen Cultural Center the Presiding Trust Co. division: includes about it,” says Eccles. by the Quorum Bishop of the Brigham Young In addition, the church owns several non- of the Twelve Church of Jesus University Apostles Christ of LDS (campuses in profit organizations, some of which appear Utah, Idaho, and to be lucrative. Take, for example, the Poly- Hawaii) nesian Cultural Center (PCC), a 42-acre trop- ical theme park on Oahu’s north shore that Ensign Peak Deseret Real estate: Agriculture: hosts luaus, canoe rides, and tours through Advisors Management Suburban Land AgReserves, seven simulated Polynesian villages. General- Corp. Reserve, Property Farmland Reserve, etc. Reserve, etc. admission adult tickets cost $49.95; VIP tick- ets cost up to $228.95. In 2010 the PCC had net assets worth $70 million and collected $23 million in ticket sales alone, as well as Deseret Digital Beneficial Temple Square Bonneville Deseret Deseret News Media Financial Group Hospitality International Book Co. Publishing Co. $36 million in tax-free donations. The PCC’s Corp. president, meanwhile, received a salary of The CEO The Church Deseret Management’s The imposing Salt Lake Keith McMullin in his Salt Temple took Lake City office 40 years to build $296,000. At the local level, the PCC, opened in doesn’t pay taxes on donated funds and hold- the LDS Church officially stopped reporting any 1963, began paying commercial property taxes ings. Mitt Romney and others at Bain Capital, the finances in the early 1960s. In 1997 an investi- in 1992, when the Land and Tax Appeal Court of private equity firm he co-founded in 1984, gave gation by Time used cross-religious compari- Hawaii ruled that the theme park “is not for char- the Mormon Church millions’ worth of stock sons and internal information to estimate the itable purposes” and is, in fact, a “commercial holdings obtained through Bain deals, accord- church’s total value at $30 billion. The maga- enterprise and business undertaking.” Never- ing to Reuters. Between 1997 and 2009, these zine also produced an estimate that $5 billion theless, the tourist destination remains exempt included $2 million in Burger King and $1 mil- worth of tithing flows into the church annually, from federal taxes because the PCC claims to be lion in Domino’s Pizza shares. Under U.S. law, and that it owned at least $6 billion in stocks and a “living museum” and an education- oriented churches can legally turn around and sell do- bonds. The Mormon Church at the time said charity that employs students who work at the nated stock without paying capital-gains taxes, the estimates were grossly exaggerated, but a center to pay their way through church-run a clear advantage for both donor and r eceiver. recent investigation by Reuters in collaboration Brigham Young University- Hawaii. The church also makes money through various with sociology professor Cragun estimates that WEEK SS “There are religious groups that own radio investment vehicles, including a trust compan the LDS Church is likely worth $40 billion today y E N I S stations, but they don’t also own cattle ranches. and an investment fund called Ensign Peak Advi- and collects up to $8 billion in tithing each year. U B There are religious groups that own retreats, but sors, which employs managers who specialize in Quinn, a faithful Mormon who spent 12 years RG E B they don’t also own insurance companies,” says international equities, cash management, fixed on the faculty at the LDS Church’s Brigham M Ryan Cragun, a sociology professor at the Uni- income, quantitative investment, and emerg- Young University in Provo, Utah, before being OO L B versity of Tampa and co-author of the recently ing markets, according to profiles on LinkedIn.