Significant demographic shifts in the island population began in 1962 when the French-financed Mauritian company Societé Huilière de Diego et Peros, which had consolidated ownership of all the plantations in the Chagos in 1883, sold the plantations to the Seychelles company Chagos-Agalega Company, which then owned the entire Chagos Archipelago, except for six acres at the mouth of the Diego Garcia lagoon. Thus, at no time did anyone living on the islands actually own a piece of real property there. Even the resident managers of the plantations were simply employees of absentee landlords.