In the early years of the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Development Trust, it financed the construction of two of five high-rise luxury condos in Hawaii (on the island of Oahu).

These luxury properties were only part of an international real estate portfolio that stretched into countries including Australia, the Philippines, Fiji, Guam, Samoa, the US, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

Financial mismanagement and extravagant government spending (i.e., investing A$4 million in a London play, Leonardo the Musical: A Portrait of Love, about Leonardo da Vinci's love life which flopped after weeks of bad reviews) led to increased spending—and increased loans—which were levied upon the real estate holdings of the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust.

Following the collapse of phosphate mining in 2002 due to the virtual exhaustion of financially viable resources, repatriation of many foreign workers began.

Today, RONPhos currently employs 20.4 per cent of the working population of the Republic of Nauru.