The Church's financial situation

[Indy Coug]

The liquidity affects your ability to handle a short-term cashflow crisis. By the same token, the probability the church has that type of problem is pretty low.

Certainly, banks and and insurance companies have very real issues with having sufficient liquidity.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Mormon Red Death

The LDS church's net worth is very high because they own so much property throughout the world.

Just think how much this temple must be worth for the land alone

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/hongkong/

If there ever was a cash crunch for the church they could always sell off some of their property

Yeah I can't imagine any real reason for the church to have very much liquid wealth. I would think that substantially all the money goes to operating the church and other good works, and buying rainy day hedges such as real estate. I would imagine that is the feeling among the brethren too but who knows. There is no shortage of need for that money for good causes and I imagine they spend as much of it that way as they wisely can.

[BYU71]

Way back when the Church kept donated securities. Based on observations I have made they stopped doing that in the late 80's. I would guess they have done that because they are not flush with cash, but have great needs for cash. The building projects they take on every year has to involve a huge amount of money.

[Clark Addison]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

Church already owned the land before its construction. It was a Stake Ctr.

Not only a Stake Center, but also the mission home, was on that property before being demolished for the temple.

An interesting note about the Hong Kong Temple. Unless things have changed over the last 20 years, it is the only temple I know of that is within a couple of blocks of a few high class whorehouses.

Always made going from the subway to the mission home interesting.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by BYU71

Way back when the Church kept donated securities. Based on observations I have made they stopped doing that in the late 80's. I would guess they have done that because they are not flush with cash, but have great needs for cash. The building projects they take on every year has to involve a huge amount of money.

And they pay for all buildings with cash up front. That can't be cheap.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Adam

And this is the crux of the problem with disclosure. Nearly every thinking Mormon would agree with you.

Many people suspect, and there are whisperings from those who work in the great and spacious HQ building that the Church has multiple billions of dollars in stocks, bonds, REITs and other liquid or semi-liquid pools. It would cause a major crisis if this were disclosed.

Based on people I know who work there, I suspect the amount is sufficient but not hoarding.

It also depends upon which corporation one looks at.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Adam

And this is the crux of the problem with disclosure. Nearly every thinking Mormon would agree with you.

Many people suspect, and there are whisperings from those who work in the great and spacious HQ building that the Church has multiple billions of dollars in stocks, bonds, REITs and other liquid or semi-liquid pools. It would cause a major crisis if this were disclosed.

It's a good thing God hasn't found out yet.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Adam

And this is the crux of the problem with disclosure. Nearly every thinking Mormon would agree with you.

Many people suspect, and there are whisperings from those who work in the great and spacious HQ building that the Church has multiple billions of dollars in stocks, bonds, REITs and other liquid or semi-liquid pools. It would cause a major crisis if this were disclosed.

No. This is the standard of care for any organization with a savings account such as an endowment. The standard of care is to put the money in a diversified portfolio including income producing securities and to protect and help grow the corpus including inflation proofing it. Income from this is then applied to good works, after preserving the corpus. If the LDS Churh were doing anything other than this with even $1 million is what ought to cause a cry of outrage among thinking people.

By the way, noting that the LDS Church has temples on expensive real estate in places like Hong Kong doesn't of itself impress me. Once a person or organization gets beyond taking care of basic needs wealth becomes much about relative wealth. Of course the LDS Church is more wealthy than most individuals or organiztions. But how rich is the LDS Church compared to the Metropolitan Museum (which is endowed), the New York Public Library? Without establishing come comparative benchmark with other non-profit organizations the point that the LDS Church has $x bilions or $x hundreds of millions saved up is meaningless.

[Indy Coug]

Personally, I have no problem with the church having billions in a mostly conservative, diversified portfolio.

You appear to have a problem with it. Why?

P.S. The church has over $3B in assets to back the liabilities for Beneficial Life alone.

[scottie]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

P.S. The church has over $2B in assets to back the liabilities for Beneficial Life alone.

Is that $2B backing dollar for dollar or a percentage of the total insured amount? And what's the life insurance "standard"? I've always wondered about that.