Posted on 04/10/2011 8:43:48 PM PDT by mnehring
Donald Trump's Atlantic City empire includes the Trump Taj Mahal. The casino company that bears Donald Trump's 24-karat name is heading for bankruptcy.
Trump sees bankruptcy as nothing more than a beneficial legal mechanism. There is no shame in bankruptcy, Trump says,"It doesn't matter - it's a modern-day thing, a legal mechanism," he told the Daily News.
Trump said he's "really happy" with the restructuring agreement that Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts has made with its largest group of bondholders, pavings the way for a $345 million investment from Credit Suisse First Boston.
The plan will be able to be carried out as the result of a pre-negotiated Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding.
That's right, $1.8 billion in debt will be cut by $544 million dollars, and the interest rate on the remianing portion of the debt will be reduced from about 12% to 7.875%. This will put Trump Hotels on an equal footing with competitors. Not only that, the deal gets a whopping $500 million line of credit for the renovating of the aging Atlantic City properties, build a new tower at Trump Taj Mahal and expand into the Las Vegas gambling scene.
"It becomes a whole different company," Trump was quoted as saying. Several analysts have said the deal is good enough medicine to heal the cash-starved Trump Hotels, which are known to have not turned a profit in their eight years as a public company, and have struggled to keep up prohibitive debt payments.
Sean Egan of Egan-Jones Ratings, a bond ratings firm, has said "This removes the sword of Damocles that was hanging over the company".
Trump insisted, as part of the restructuring efforts, to the investing of $55 million in cash of his own money. This was his idea, rather than a demand by Credit Suisse or the bondholders.
Trump will now be chairman instead of chief executive, and his ownership stake will be down to 25% from the original 56%. The star of "The Apprentice" will however, stay involved in Trump Hotels and be paid an annual salary of some $2 million. Apparently bankruptcy has it's advantages.
Trump will be overseeing development interests and projects, and deal with government officials in new markets the company enters.
"It was extremely important that Trump be incentivized to work with us," said excecutive vice president Scott Butera, who's in charge of the financial restructuring of the Atlantic City empire which includes the Trump Taj Mahal.
Donald John Trump, born June 14th, 1946, was the son of Fred Trump, a multi-billion dollar real estate mogul.
After attending the Wharton business school, Trump joined the family real estate business. A self-promoting and flamboyant dealmaker, he was able to secure loans with minimal collateral in the free-wheeling 1980s and created an empire in real estate, casinos, sports, and transportation.
By 1990, however, the effects of recession had left him unable to meet loan payments. Although he shored up his businesses with additional loans and postponed interest payments, mounting debt brought Trump to business bankruptcy and the brink of personal bankruptcy. Banks and bondholders lost hundreds of millions of dollars but opted to restructure his debt to avoid risking losing even more in a court fight.
By 1994, Trump had eliminated a huge portion of his $900 million personal debt and reduced substantially his nearly $3.5 billion in business debt. Forced to relinquish the Trump Shuttle (bought in 1989), he retained Trump Tower in New York City and control of his three casinos in Atlantic City.
Chase Manhattan, which lent Trump the money he needed to buy the West Side yards, his biggest Manhattan parcel, forced a sale of the parcel to Asian developers. According to former members of the Trump Organization, Trump did not retain any ownership of the site's real estate - the owners merely promised to give him about 30 percent of the profits once the site was completely developed or sold. Until that time, the owners kept Trump on to do what he did best: build. They gave him a modest construction fee and a management fee to oversee the development. They also allowed him to put his name on the buildings that eventually rose on the yards because his well-known moniker allowed them to charge a premium for their condos.
In 1995, he combined his casino holdings into the publicly held Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts. Wall Street drove its stock above $35 in 1996, but by 1998 it had fallen into single digits as the company remained profitless and struggled to pay just the interest on its nearly $2 billion in debt. Under such financial pressure, the properties were unable to make the improvements necessary for keeping up with their flashier competitors.
In 1999 Donald's father Fred Trump passed away. The same man who co-signed Donald's first business loans, also happened to be the man who enabled Donald to escape from the massive financial morass he had created over the decades. Unfortunately, creditors who got stuck with the past losses were not as fortunate, being forced to take catastrophic writeoffs and losses even up to 2004 when Trump refused to continue to back his casino.
Trump toyed with the idea of running for president on the Reform party ticket. Crippling debt payments forced his casinos into bankruptcy again in 2004, and Trump's stake in the company was greatly reduced when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2005. Widely known as simply the Donald, Trump stars in his own reality television show, which debuted in 2004.
Although Trump boasted he would build a bigger empire than his father, in the end, his father had built an empire large enough to accommodate even Donald's most lavish personal losses.
Donald J. Trump continues to be a successful business entrepreneur to this day.
The Forbes 400 lists his net worth at $2.7 billion, though Trump himself claims to be worth over $5 billion. However, on October 26 2005 the New York Times published an investigation into the history of Trump's net worth which suggested that the figures stated by Forbes have regularly been several times greater than his actual worth, even though they have been much lower than Trump's own personal estimates.
Right now it’s Trump and Romney at the top.
I will NOT vote for Romney
So, at this point we have a choice between one of those two or Obama.
(we got plenty of time - things can change - but other candidates do not magically appear simply by bashing other GOP candidates without having an alternative to look at)
So, who’s your alternative that knows business as these two guys and can win?
.
Relax. He’s not running.
He’s using it as a platform to go after the muzzie.
Let him.
_______________
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The facts re; BC fraud, Obama not natural born citizen:
How to reach Trump:
http://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump
http://twitter.com/#!/realDonaldTrump
http://shouldtrumprun.com/
http://shouldtrumprun.com/your-voices/
http://shouldtrumprun.com/contact-us/
Herman Cain
.
Policy wise, I like Cain but I think the hill of recognition is too steep to climb. I personally think we haven’t seen who will be the leader even step forward yet and we may be all surprised. I don’t think it will be anyone we are seeing now. Who? Not sure, just my gut feeling and some buzz I’m hearing from others. The Conservative side of the house is eerie in terms of few actually putting pen to paper but they are talking to each other.
Then there’s this, from David Plouffe: There is zero chance that Donald Trump would ever be hired by the American people to do this job, says Plouffe. I saw Donald Trump kind of rising in some polls and given his behavior and spectacle the last couple of weeks, I hope he keeps on rising.
And I hope this infuriates Trump into running! He seems like the type who wants to prove his critics wrong.
I rather doubt that any N.Y.C. developers are over burdened with ethics. Trump is....flamboyant? and who is really going to take him seriously?
Frankly, conservatives do not trust Romney or Trump because of their last minute political conversions and flip-flops on key issues. Some of those being high profile social issues.
Not only did Romney push an earlier version of Obamacare, aka. Romneycare. Trump supported universal health care and a single payer health system. I seriously doubt either Romney or Trump could win the nomination. And I'm convinced neither one could beat Obama. One thing is certain, neither Romney or Trump will ever get my vote in the primary or the general.
Bankruptcy of the government is already well underway. Trump to my knowledge was not the one that created it. Btw, I not a Trump for pres fan.
Let's hope you're right
and we may be all surprised.
Let's hope so
Right Now it's:
1) Romney
2) Trump
3) Huckabee
4) Gingrich
5) Sarah Palin
And in that order.
The best approach to Trump is to focus on and highlight the attributes of better candidates...whereever they are. I dont see any other than maybe Bachman that are worthwhile. Huckabee is unelectable. So is Haley Barbour. Romney wont get anything done. Trump would be a joke candidate. Who is out there that can actually solve the debt problem?
Saw post 27. Thanks.
I know exactly what drives this forum. I've been a Freeper since 2000.
One thing is certain, neither Romney or Trump will ever get my vote in the primary or the general.
Ironically, I had to switch usernames for having that same point of view you just expressed once McCain had won the nomination.
So, I know where you're coming from, but no way will I ever allow my non-vote to put a socialist back in the White House.
Really. Then you should know that social issues are a big driving force behind this forum. A force rooted in the Constitution. And what was your original handle again, before you switched?
In my book, anyone dumb enough to vote for Trump or another liberal, is no conservative.
I would very much like to see a discussion of those items. That would be both timely and relevant to the events transpiring currently.
ping to #75.
Thanks.
I certainly do and they are social issues which I support.
I think you should read my posts before you comment and spew accusations.
My point was for us not to risk all on the Presidency when we should focus on winning the 20+ democrat seats in play in the Senate in 2012 and fill those seats with conservatives and increase our majority in Congress with even more conservatives.
My comments were referring to the general American population and I repeat democrats (the ones that will not put their party above America), Independents and republicans will most likely be voting with their wallet with economic issues above all other issues during the 2012 Presidential election (if the economy stays the same as it is now or worsens).
You may not like that but that is where we are at.
It would be nice to see a conservative come out who has economic strengths that the Americans will vote for. Conservative issues win everytime but with the economic situation we have a lot of scared voters who are desperate and will be voting for issues such as:
1) drilling our own
2) lower taxes
3) smaller government
4) less government interference
but they are going to need to trust that this candidate has a lot of knowledge in business and economics.
So far, I do not see that conservative candidate.
That's why I say just in case that candidate does not appear for us we must focus our conservative aims by electing Senators and Congressman who are conservative.
If Obama has been so far to the left during his first term, can you imagine what's in store for us in his last term?
Your accusations that I am somehow anything less than conservative are laughable as I had built a website of links and videos for 12 years now which shows otherwise so I'm really not worried about anybody trying to define where I stand politically.
It absolutely has a relevant date.
You don’t like Trump, that’s okay. I’m not really down with him at this point and think his whole posturing is just part of his PR schtick.
But you post an article from 2004 and don’t bother to tell us it’s not current events but history.
The site you posted from has right at the top “This story was originally published on August 11, 2004”.
You think that was okay? It’s right? The time has relevancy to the story.
BTW, the link you gave is from 2007 and a reprint of the original.
+1 bigtime!
I haven’t file for BK every and hope I never do. But Tainan and Trump are right. BK is a tool that allows parties to gain or retain some value from a borrower.
It sucks when it happens and I hate when my customers go BK.
But I am way happier with a BK that is reorg than a BK that is bust.
When they reorg I get to set the terms of continued service.
At this point, I would put Trump’s candidacy in the category of “entertainment”. He is certainly making the MSM squirm over the birther issue.
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