Ensign Peak Advisors Ties to Big Tech and the LDS Church

Ensign Peak Advisors has ties to some of the biggest names in tech, including Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The company's clients include these tech giants, which has helped Ensign Peak Advisors build a reputation as a trusted investment advisor.

Ensign Peak Advisors is also closely tied to the LDS Church, which is the largest single investor in the company. The church's investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, was established in 1997.

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Ensign Peak Advisors has a rich history that dates back to the 1960s. N. Eldon Tanner, a LDS Church leader, established a practice of setting aside money from contributions each year for a rainy-day fund.

This practice laid the foundation for EP's future growth. The investment division started with just three employees and grew rapidly.

By the late 1970s, EP's investment division reportedly managed $1 billion. This impressive growth was a testament to the company's wise financial management.

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In 1997, EP was incorporated as a non-profit corporation on September 29th. This marked a significant milestone in the company's history.

Today, EP employs about 70 people, and all employees must maintain good standing in the LDS Church. This requirement reflects the company's strong ties to the LDS community.

The LDS Church has explained the use of donations by members in a 2019 press release. According to the release, the vast majority of funds are used immediately to meet the needs of the growing Church.

A portion of donations is methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future. This approach has helped EP build a strong and stable foundation.

Ensign Peak Advisors' investment portfolio is a significant one, with holdings reportedly totaling $100 billion as of 2019.

The fund includes a substantial $40 billion-worth of U.S. stock, which is a notable portion of its overall holdings.

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Timberland in the Florida panhandle and investments in prominent hedge funds like Bridgewater Associates are also part of EP's portfolio.

Individual shares of stock identified as part of the investment fund reportedly include Apple, Chevron, Visa, JPMorgan Chase, Home Depot, Amazon, and Google.

The fund has gained about 7% annually in recent years, according to Clarke, which is a respectable return on investment.

EP had recognized $84,415,984 of unrelated business income in 2019, as stated in its Form 990-T filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

This unrelated business income resulted in $17,242,385 of tax for EP in 2019.

The SEC investigation into Ensign Peak Advisors and the LDS Church was a significant event in 2023. On February 21, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) publicly charged EP and the LDS Church for failing to file forms that would have disclosed the Church's equity investments.

The SEC found that Ensign Peak and the church's portfolio had increased in value from $7 billion to approximately $37.8 billion between 1997 and 2019. The Church was concerned that disclosure of the assets in the name of Ensign Peak would lead to negative consequences.

The SEC's cease-and-desist order stated that Ensign Peak did not have the authority to implement this approach without the approval of the Church's First Presidency. The Church used shell LLCs across the United States to file forms instead of a combined Form 13F.

Ensign Peak Advisors and church employees were selected to sign as managers of each Clone LLC, despite having very limited information about the Clone LLCs or why they were created. These managers were selected for their common names and a limited presence on social media.

The SEC penalized Ensign Peak $4 million and the LDS Church $1 million as a result of these charges. The church stated it had worked with the SEC for years to reach settlement and affirmed its commitment to comply with the law.

James Huntsman, the brother of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., filed a lawsuit in 2019 seeking the return of $5 million he donated before leaving the church.

The church initially sought to dismiss the lawsuit, but it was reinstated in August 2023 by a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel of three judges.

The church was granted an en banc appeal of the reinstatement, with the court hearing oral arguments in September 2024.

A unanimous decision was made in January 2025, dismissing the lawsuit with no evidence of fraudulent misrepresentation by the LDS Church.

Three church members filed a lawsuit in October 2023 in the United States District Court of Utah, claiming to have donated a total of $350,000.

A third lawsuit was filed in California in early 2024, seeking class action status.

By August 2024, several of the suits in five states had been combined and granted class-action status.

The combined suit was dismissed with prejudice in April 2025 by a federal judge, ruling that the plaintiffs had exceeded the statute of limitations and failed to meet the legal standard for fraud.

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Ensign Peak Advisors holds a significant stake in Big Tech, with six stocks in its portfolio valued at over $1 billion each.

Apple and Nvidia are among the tech giants with holdings exceeding $2 billion, while Microsoft shares are valued at $3.4 billion.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, has seen a significant increase in its Big Tech holdings, with a total value of $54.7 billion as of late March.

This represents a three-month gain of $4.2 billion and the highest value since the account began disclosing its investments to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ensign Peak Advisors' Big Tech investments have grown by nearly $25 billion since the account hit a pandemic-related low in early 2020, at $29.8 billion.

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The Mormon Church and Ensign Peak Advisors are intertwined in a way that's not entirely clear to the public. Ensign Peak represents only the Utah-based faith's direct ownership of U.S. stocks and mutual funds exceeding a regulatory threshold of $100 million.

The church's wealth-management firm, Ensign Peak Advisors, was founded in 1997 and has only recently come to light via SEC filings since late 2019. An IRS whistleblower alleged that Ensign Peak's holdings had reached upward of $100 billion.

The church's estimated wealth, including its real estate holdings worldwide, is around $265 billion as of 2023, according to The Widow's Mite website. This estimate is based on public data and computer modeling.

The church's investment income now exceeds its income from members' tithing and all other donations, according to Widow's Mite. This is a significant shift in the church's financial dynamics.

Latter-day Saint leaders have described the Ensign Peak fund as a "rainy day" account intended to buffer the global faith from economic downturns and to help pay for its ministerial, philanthropic, educational, and missionary works around the world.

The church agreed in an SEC settlement to pay a total of $5 million in penalties for failing to disclose past holdings and for creating shell companies that federal regulators said were intended to hide those investments and church control over them.

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Ensign Peak Advisors held $50.5 billion as last year closed, according to SEC filings.

The firm's investment portfolio is quite diverse, with a total of 1,725 different investments for the latest quarter in 2024.

Ensign Peak tends to mirror the mix of stocks in the S&P 500, but was up 8.4% for the first three months of 2024, slightly behind the index's 10.8% gain.

Its shares in Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Facebook reached a combined value of $11.3 billion through March, accounting for more than 20% of Ensign Peak's total holdings.

Ensign Peak's largest nontech holdings last quarter included $900.4 million in Mastercard, $881.2 million in UnitedHealth Group, and $771.6 million in JPMorgan Chase.

The firm has been a net seller of U.S. stocks through much of last year, shedding nearly $1.75 billion of its holdings.

Ensign Peak's investment portfolio includes sizable investments in mutual, index, and sector-targeted funds, real estate investment trusts, hedge funds, and a host of foreign companies held through U.S. depository receipts.

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