The Mormon Church settles allegations it hid $32 billion in investments. A top exec said the church was worried its staggering wealth would cause members to stop donating.

• The SEC charged The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its investment company Tuesday.
• The charges allege the two "went to great lengths" to hid the church's $34 billion in investment assets.

The Mormon Church agreed to settled allegations it tried to hide $34 billion in investment assets — a move a top executive said was done in part because the church was worried members wouldn't donate if they realized how rich it was.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Esign Peak Advisers Inc., the church's investment management company, on Tuesday for disclosure failures and misstated filings.

According to the SEC, the church and Ensign Peak "went to great lengths to avoid disclosing the Church's investments, depriving the Commission and the investing public of accurate market information."

The church and Ensign Peak agreed to pay a collective $5 million settlement to settle the charges.

According to a 2020 story in the The Wall Street Journal, officials said Ensign Peak's investment fund, which was one of the largest in the world, was "a rainy-day account to be used in difficult economic times."

Roger Clarke, the head of Ensign Peak Advisors, told the Journal that church leaders were concerned that knowledge of the fund would discourage regular donations from its members known as tithes.

"Paying tithing is more of a sense of commitment than it is the church needing the money," Clarke said two years ago. "So they never wanted to be in a position where people felt like, you know, they shouldn't make a contribution."

The scale of the church's wealth only became apparent in 2019 when David Nielsen, a former employee of Ensign Peak Advisors, made a whistleblower complaint.

The Mormon Church's investment portfolio features billions in Apple, Microsoft, and health care stocks, Insider previously reported.