Donald Trump, Trump Organisation

Wednesday 18th March 2009

The title of Donald Trump’s recent book, Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life compresses the sixty-three-year old’s attitude and success into a few short words – Trump is a formidable ass kicker, but this ass kicker is in trouble, and not for the first time. Trump’s string of casino firms, Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc, recently missed a $53.1m interest payment causing the shadow of bankruptcy to rear its head once more. He’s also stirring up controversy in Scotland – Trump is half Scot – after winning a controversial battle for planning permission for a new £1bn golf course and holiday resort, including up to 500 holiday homes, on the north east cost of Scotland, despite fierce opposition from environmentalists. Trump never planned on local farmer Michael Forbes not selling his ramshackle property – located slap bang in view of the planned world-class fairway and 23 acres of land– to him. “I wasn’t against the golf course from the start,” Forbes told the Times recently, “but then they just went mental because I wouldn’t sell. They said they’d make my life a misery and they are.”

Confidence never a problem
It is likely Trump will triumph over Forbes in the end; he usually does. Born in 1946, the ruthless half-Scot half-German property tycoon was brought up in Queens, New York City. Trump’s father, by Donald’s own admission, was a huge influence: Fred Trump, a property developer, bred into Donald early the hard-bitten deal-making skills that were to serve him so well. “My father was my mentor,” he said subsequently, “and I learned a tremendous amount about every aspect of the construction industry from him.” Dad also gave Trump plenty of confidence. “Even before I was 20 he would send me out to do jobs,” he told the Daily Telegraph in an interview, “He praised me all the time. I’ve always had great success and it had a lot to do with that.”

After attending Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Trump hit Manhattan in search of real estate projects to sink his teeth into. Trump was apparently close to broke at the time (though this seems apocryphal given Fred’s own wealth). However, the canny half-Scot knew how to apply the power of networking, enrolling at several of Manhattan’s most exclusive members’ clubs where he schmoozed with the rich and influential. Steadily, Trump junior began to buy large pieces of prime Manhattan real estate – a big step up from the relatively lower value basis his father had prospered from in nearby Queens.

However, the huge empire building and financial leveraging came at a cost, realised in the early 1990s when debts began to mount – up to a staggering $9.2bn. If there was ever a time where charm, confidence and can-do spirit was needed, it was at a crucial creditor’s meeting: Trump was given time to sort out his debts but he had to cede some of the ownership of his third casino, the $1bn Tajo Mahal and his notorious, over-the-top spending was given a sharp ticking off. But within a year, and still in control of much of his real estate empire and the famous Trump Towers, Trump had turned the situation around.

Continual reinvention
Trump has continually re-branded himself. He has shown himself to be politically adept, openly criticising the Iraq war on US TV show Larry King Live in 2007. He still owns several million square feet of prime Manhattan real estate, and media exposure keeps him in the public eye. It would be a mistake though to think Trump, with a wealthy father and a super-abundance of charm, was simply born lucky. Famous for his iron discipline, he still regularly rises at 5.30am. And despite the orange and grey comb-over, he still magnetises women. Currently, he is married to Melania Knauss, a Slovenian ex-model 24 years his junior; before Knauss he was married to an American beauty queen who succeeded Ivana Trump – who famously advised wives whose husbands strayed not to get mad but instead ‘get everything’.

It is difficult to gauge just how wealthy Donald Trump is. In 2007, Forbes Magazine valued his wealth at approximately $3bn, but any figure is made complex by the many branding, marketing and building projects underway. The Trump brand has been truly lengthened, extending to a mesmerising line of products from menswear to vodka to financial services to steaks, not forgetting Trump University and his interests in world wrestling. He jointly owns the Miss Universe Organisation with NBC. Property marketing continues. Many developers pay him to be the public face of large projects while much of his licensed property assets are run by his children.

Certainly some of his projects are currently under pressure, but he often surprises, even in hard times. Just how well he will come out of the current downturn remains to be seen. Trump Towers Atlanta – two conjoined condo towers planned to be built in Atlanta – has been continually delayed due to credit crunch pressures. He has also just lost a bid to delay a legal claim by Deutsche Bank AG on $40m for his new 92-storey Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. But Trump – pardon the pun – repeatedly trumps detractors, of which there are many. And he has new friends in Scotland where a massive amount of new investment could bring up to 6,000 new jobs, boosting the local economy, even though the Scottish real estate and golf boom is now well past its peak. He’s provided jobs and created wealth, not to mention plenty of amusement for the snobs who ridicule his hair, numerous wives and lavish lifestyle. Credit where credit is due?

Ten of Donald Trump’s Real Estate Ventures and How Much They’re Making For Him.

• 555 California Street, formerly the Bank of America Center, in San Francisco. Trump’s stake is valued at $540m.
• Trump World Tower, 845 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY. $290m.
• Trump Tower: 725 Fifth Ave, New York. $288m.
• The Trump Building at 40 Wall Street. $260m
• Riverside South/Trump Place, New York. $170m
• Trump Hotel Las Vegas. Trump’s stake is valued at $162m.
• Trump Park Avenue: Park Avenue & 59th Street. $142m.
• Golf Courses (valued at $127 million):
• Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago, (under construction) The entire project is valued at $1.2bn ($112m stake for Trump).
• Nike Store (located in Trump Tower) $120m

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