ANC outside interests: bringing money back to Alaska.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: ALASKA NATIVE CORPORATIONS

For the past two hundred years, the standard business model in Alaska has been focused on exports: fur, fish, timber, gold, and petroleum. Wealth in Alaska has generally moved outward, but in the past twenty years, one group of companies has successfully turned that business model around and brought the money back to the state: Alaska Native Corporations.

The corporations were formed under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which divided 44 million acres of land and $963 million among Alaska's Native peoples. It set up twelve regional corporations and more than two hundred village corporations to manage the lands and money. A thirteenth regional corporation was later established for Alaska Natives living outside the state. These corporations were given a dual mandate--to use the money and land to create economic opportunities for shareholders and to provide for their cultural and social well-being.

In fiscal year 2012, the twelve Alaska-based regional corporations alone pulled in more than $9 billion in revenue; village corporations accounted for millions more. In 2012, they comprised twenty of the top 49 Alaskan-owned businesses ranked by gross revenue in the state. And while the corporations focus on providing jobs and opportunities for shareholders inside Alaska, much of their business takes place out of state, which means those Outside interests are generating revenue that's coming in to Alaska.

Alaska businesses have operations outside the state for two major reasons: one is the need for a large corporation to have geographic diversity in its holdings; the second is that, for all its great size, economic opportunities in Alaska are limited.

Energy and Real Estate

Anchorage-based Cook Inlet Region Inc. (CIRI) makes its investments Outside with an eye toward the business sectors it knows well and the ability to partner with businesses that are also successful in their fields. In the past several years, CIRI has focused on specific sectors such as the oil and gas industry, energy, and real estate, says Jason Moore, corporate communications director.

"First of all, the reason we focus on certain sectors is because they're sectors we know well," he says. "The oil and gas sector, we've been involved with that for a long time." In 2011, CIRI sold its interest in Peak Oilfield Services to its longtime partner, Nabors Industries. A year later, CIRI had the opportunity acquire a majority equity stake in Cruz Energy Services, which has its roots in Alaska's North Slope.

Cruz Energy specializes in moving rigs, crane work, and energy project logistics, all skills honed in Alaska's unforgiving arctic conditions. This make it ideally suited to work in the harsh conditions found in the Bakken...