7- to spot cargoes of wheat, automobiles, fertilizers, and other bulk commodities. The vessels we own were acquired at a cost of approximately $29,000,000 and were purchased at favorable prices. These vessels were financed in part by bank borrowings of $19,700,000, which have now been reduced to $8,862,000 and should be retired by the end of 1962. Our investment in Cia. San Juan has earned us $5,959,000 to the end of our 1959 fiscal year, $825,000 of which was received as a dividend and the balance reinvested. This venture has not only been profitable but has provided assurance of low-cost transportation of Marcona ore to market, thereby minimizing the impact of the violent fluctuations that characterize the charter market and assuring that Marcona ore can be competitive in the world markets regardless of the condition of the shipping market. The next major source of our earnings is from our land development and real estate activities and this branch of our business actually now employs more funds than any other part of our operations. Our present investment in land development on a consolidated basis amounts to some $30,000,000, about one-half of which is in our Alameda projects. Let us classify these real estate activities into two broad types. The first is our Special Ventures in which we acquire a property and build on it an income-producing structure, ultimately hoping to resell the package at a profit. Because we perform the construction service ourselves, borrow as much as we can without involving the credit of the parent company, our equity investment is kept relatively low. The projects have varied greatly mass rental housing, a grain elevator, office buildings, parking facilities, but the principle and the pattern is much the same. In the past several years we have disposed of projects constructed at a cost of some $75 million against which we