Posted on: Saturday, June 4, 2005

Damon trustees paid $1.3M

By Rick Daysog
Advertiser Staff Writer

The winding down of the Estate of Samuel Mills Damon has generated hefty commissions for its four trustees.

In documents filed in state Probate Court last week, the 81-year-old trust said it paid board members Walter Dods, Paul Mullin Ganley, David Haig and Fred Weyand about $1.3 million each in 2004.

That compares with more than $3.7 million paid to each of the trustees in 2003 and $702,000 in 2002.

The 2003 pay was inflated by $3.1 million, one-time commissions that each of the trustees took on the $466 million sale of the Damon Estate's Mapunapuna and Sand Island properties.

Tim Johns, the estate's chief operating officer, could not be reached for immediate comment. But in its consolidated financial statements, the estate's auditor, KPMG LLP, said that most of the 2004 pay came from a 1 percent commission on the transfer of more than $400 million to the trust's beneficiaries.

Damon Estate, at one time one of the nation's wealthiest family fortunes with about $900 million in assets, is a private trust founded in 1924 by the will of local banking pioneer Samuel Mills Damon.

Two years ago, the estate sold 220 acres of light industrial and commercial properties in Mapunapuna and Sand Island to Massachusetts-based HRPT Properties Trust.

The estate began to wind down its operations in November when Damon's last remaining grandchild, 84-year-old Joan Damon Haig, died in New Jersey. Since December, the trust has transferred more than $500 million to Damon's 20 heirs.

The trust held much of its remaining assets pending the outcome of a ruling by the state Supreme Court over how to divvy up the trust's assets among family members.