About Mesabi Trust
Mesabi Trust is a royalty trust organized under the laws of the State of New York in 1961 to derive income from an iron mine (the Peter Mitchell Mine) located near Babbitt, Minnesota, at the eastern end of the Mesabi Iron Range. Under various agreements the mine is operated by Northshore Mining Company (“Northshore”), a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (“CCI”). Northshore mines the ore, which is in the form of taconite, a hard rock containing approximately 21% recoverable iron, crushes it, separates the iron particles from the non-metallic, and forms the resulting concentrate into pellets which are shipped for use in steel-producing blast furnaces of customers of CCI, an international mining company, the largest producer of iron ore pellets in North America.
Northshore pays royalties to the Trust primarily based on the selling price of pellets shipped from Northshore’s pellet plant at Silver Bay, Minnesota, on Lake Superior approximately 45 miles from the mine, plus a significantly smaller royalty based on tons of ore extracted at the mine. Information about the reserve capacity and current pellet production of the mine can be found in the Trust’s most current Annual Report on From 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and available through the “SEC Filings” tab on this website.
The Trust is publicly held, and units of beneficial interest are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “MSB.” The Trust is a pass-through entity and its revenues are not taxed to the Trust but are taxed to the unitholders. As a condition to the Trust not being taxed as a corporation for Federal income tax purposes, the Trust is not permitted to engage in any business other than the collection and distribution of royalties and payment of expenses.
While there are a number of documents affecting the Trust, the mine and lands owned by the Trust adjacent to the mine, the two most significant documents are the Agreement of Trust dated July 18, 1961, as amended October 25, 1982, which provides for the management and administration of the Trust, and the Amendment of Assignment, Assumption and Further Assignment of Peters Lease dated August 17, 1989, which provides for the mining, processing and sale of iron ore products by Northshore and the payment of royalties to the Trust based on those sales. The payment of royalties, consisting of base royalties, bonus royalties and, at times, a minimum advance royalty, is quite detailed and is described more fully in the Trust’s most current Annual Report on From 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and available through the “SEC Filings” tab on this website.
The Agreement of Trust has a duration ending 21 years after the death of the last survivor of 25 individuals living at the inception of the Trust, all of whom are named in an exhibit to the Agreement of Trust and were alive several years ago when the Trustees investigated this matter. The Amendment of Assignment has a duration ending when the reserves of minerals which are the subject of that agreement are exhausted.