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07-11-2005

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Oliver Ryan, Fortune Retirement Guide 2005

Alaskan sablefish can live more than 90 years and weigh up to 40 pounds. They may also be an excellent investment for your individual retirement account. Rhonda Hubbard made that discovery in 2003 when she moved $92,000 of her IRA funds out of stocks and bonds and into an "individual fishing quota" for sablefish managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service. "I was thinking that we'd like to invest in things that we're familiar with," says Hubbard, who has a degree in business from the University of Washington and is the financial half of a wife-and-husband commercial fishing operation in Seward, Alaska. "The stock market is just a lot of psychology. And when I hear the stories of Enron, I get perturbed."

One thing Rhonda, 43, and her husband, Jim, 49, know better than most are the politics and economics of the Alaskan sablefish fishery. The quota system for Alaska was established in 1995, and since then a thriving secondary market has grown up in which sablefish quotas can be bought, sold, or leased?much like pollution rights or taxi medallions. The lease on Rhonda's IFQ is now returning 10% a year to her...

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