{"id":11512,"date":"2011-11-16T00:55:33","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T00:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=11512"},"modified":"2011-11-16T00:55:33","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T00:55:33","slug":"mplt-portfolio-valued-at-71m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/mplt-portfolio-valued-at-71m\/","title":{"rendered":"MPLT portfolio valued at $71M"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Clarissa David
\nReporter<\/div>\n

\"Marianas\u00a0Marianas Public Land Trust, the autonomous agency created to hold and invest money from public land leases, is still recovering from the impact of the global financial crisis in 2008, according to MPLT board chair Alvaro Santos.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Rotary Club of Saipan general membership meeting yesterday, Santos said MPLT has a portfolio of $71 million as of Sept. 30, 2011, but noted that it incurred a \u201cdramatic loss\u201d of $7 million three years ago due to the crisis.<\/p>\n

Santos said they shifted much of their portfolio into fixed income given the market situation at that time, allocating 65 percent to fixed income and 35 percent in equities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sort of protected us from larger losses in the financial market,\u201d explained Santos. \u201cBut after that, we bounced back. So for this year, our total portfolio is recovering. We have $71 million and still recovering.\u201d<\/p>\n

MPLT has one investment consultant, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and seven money managers that manage its portfolio.<\/p>\n

Santos described their investment strategy as \u201cconservative in general.\u201d \u201cWe try to stay on the safe side and ensure that we meet our obligation with the central government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

MPLT is mandated by law to remit to the CNMI government’s general fund the interest income it receives from investing the public land lease money.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny and all interest income dividends earned, less administrative expense for the agency, go to the general fund. That had been going on since 1983,\u201d said Santos.<\/p>\n

He said they have remitted a total of $55 million in interest earned income since the inception of MPLT.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s quite a bit of money,\u201d said Santos, who added that for this year, they had a return of 5.9 percent and gave the central government a $2-million check.<\/p>\n

Santos noted, however, that MPLT does not have the authority to earmark that money. \u201cOur responsibility stops when we cut a check to the central government and it’s up to the Legislature with their appropriation authority to allocate those funds to the competing needs of Commonwealth residents,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

MPLT vs other land trust agencies<\/p>\n

Unlike MPLT, Santos said he was \u201csurprised\u201d to find out that the land trust office of Guam does not invest the public land lease money it receives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just let the public lease portions of public land that almost no revenue-generating activity takes place. That’s it. There ‘s no investment activity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Santos said any public land lease money in Guam also \u201cgoes directly\u201d to its central government.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut other jurisdictions [in the Pacific], they have similar functions like us,\u201d said Santos.<\/p>\n

‘Challenging’<\/p>\n

One of the \u201cmost challenging\u201d difficulties that MPLT encountered over the years, Santos said, was \u201ctrying to get the public land lease money\u201d from the Department of Public Lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took two lawsuits before the Superior Court to force public lands lease monies to come to the Land Trust from the Marianas Public Land Corp. and its subsequent successor, [Marianas Public Lands Authority],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When he came on board in 2006, Santos found out that over $400,000 in legal fees were incurred in those lawsuits. \u201cI thought that would not have been necessary if there was a more cooperative relationship with [DPL] and [MPLT],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Santos said he worked with former Public Lands secretary John Del Rosario Jr. \u201cto avoid the mistakes of the past,\u201d allowing MPLT to receive from DPL $5 million in 2007 and 2008.<\/p>\n

The board chair added that they are expecting to receive money from DPL \u201canytime now\u201d or as soon as they close their books and have audited financial statements available.<\/p>\n

Diversified local
\ninvestment<\/p>\n

Prompted by the urgency for more revenue for the government, Santos said they have developed a new investment program focusing on the local market.<\/p>\n

The diversified local investment, Santos said, allows them to either give loans or invest at the local level \u201cso we can help the economy in one way or another.\u201d<\/p>\n

At present, MPLT is looking at three proposals. The first is the $13 million ARRA money application for the Small Business Credit Initiative of the Commonwealth Development Authority that would involve MPLT through a \u201c$10 million standby line of credit.\u201d The second is the $2 million electronic health record system for the Commonwealth Health Center that aims to \u201ccut down paperwork and a lot of bureaucracies.\u201d The third is the financing for the Arctic Circle company for the creation of cargo transportation service between the CNMI and Guam.<\/p>\n

While they would like to help local investments, Santos said they are also \u201cinterested in those endeavors that will bring in and infuse new money into the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Clarissa David Reporter \u00a0Marianas Public Land Trust, the autonomous agency created to hold and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}