Island puts all its cash in U.S. investor’s hands

Press, 10 May 1979, Page 8

Island puts all its cash in U.S. investor’s hands

NZPA Encino, (California) The Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu has handed over its entire cash assets equivalent to more than $580,000 for investment by an American businessman in California.

Sidney Gross, head of the Blue Chip Realty Investment Company of Encino, confirmed the arrangement yesterday. A cheque for the money was handed over to Mr Gross several weeks ago by the Prime Minister of Tuvalu (Mr Toalipi Lauti), a tiny group of Polynesian islets which became independent from Britain last yean they were formerly the Ellice Islands. The Tuvalu Government

plans to develop a fishing Industry on the proceeds fnM&its investment.

Mr Gross said that he “absolutely” had no worries about the consequences of the venture’s success or failure for the 7500 people of Tuvalu. He said he personally had underwritten the $580,000, and his assets were “probably 100 times that”

Mr Gross had been asked to comment on a story In the May issue of “Pacific Islands Monthly” published in Sydney, reporting the Tuvalu investment

The magazine described the Tuvaluan Prime Minister as “a man of faith, a man with a deep trust in human nature ... He doesn’t have the cash resources of Nauru or the natural resources of Papua New Guinea. But he did have half a million dollars

Mr Gross wav'osked if

it was made clear to him that the money handed to him by the Prime Minister was the islands’ entire available cash.

He replied: "Yes, it was. And therefore it is my intention to make sure that every penny and everyone of us is as safe as though it was right in the bank itself, or even safer.” He said the investment was in real estate, and would return 15 per cent for the Tuvaluan Government over a five-year period. Mr Gross said his company had total investments of S2OM or S3OM, but he declined to give further details on the ground that it would breach business confidentiality. He said his association with the Prime Minister of Tuvalu had grown through mutual business! contacts.