I ran across this article and it cleared up the picture of Donald Trump. He sells his "brand" for cash flow because he can't get funding from USA sources. He attaches himself to any project because he can't lose, especially the way his lawyers produce the paperwork.
By Peter Elkind
In November 2007, (click here) The Wall Street Journal infuriated Donald Trump with an article that dissected his recent real estate setbacks. Headlined “Stalled Condo Projects Tarnish Trump’s Name,” the report raised doubt about what the mogul treasured — and banked on — most in business: the value of his personal brand.
Trump responded with a 512-word letter to the editor. Calling the story “one of the most ridiculous I have read in many years,” he complained that it ignored his “tremendous successes with massive projects” and instead focused on “small jobs” in the Florida cities of Tampa and Fort Lauderdale. He dismissed both as licensing deals “for which I am not responsible for development.”...
...A New Jersey real estate broker named Roman Osadchuk introduced them to executives at the Trump Organization in May 2004. From there, things moved rapidly....
Trump was touting his Signature on a property that had no funding. Yet, due to the buyers of the condos yet to be built, Trump was collecting his fees.
...The $220 million tower was touted in a press release as a “Donald J. Trump Signature Property” — an “ultra-luxury” building featuring concierge and valet services, a fitness center and spa, a fine art collection, and “imported marble floors with inlaid onyx highlights.” Its 190 condos would command prices ranging from $700,000 to more than $6 million....
Trump could easily lie and deceive the public and potential buyers because there was a clause in the contract that no one could release THE TRUTH to the people that Trump had not spent a dime on the project. Trump HOPED that if there were enough committed buyers the funding for the building would come in. It never happened.
....Those sales were achieved with the help of some deception about Trump’s financial involvement. During his February 2005 appearance in Tampa, he told the St. Petersburg Times reporters that he already held “substantial” equity in the project and wanted to boost his stake, but his partners wouldn’t let him because “when they’re selling that well they don’t let you do that.”...
No one in the Trump organization ever bothered to check out the viability of the project.
...That was less than certain. In testing the ground at the site, the developers had discovered the terrain was too soft to support a 52-story building without tens of millions in extra foundation and design work. In March 2006, the project’s general contractor, a prominent national firm, dropped out....
...The Trump Organization monitored the situation closely. At one point in 2006, Diamond advised Donald Jr., Ivanka and Cremer that Deutsche Bank is “the only game in town.” But that didn’t come together either....
...Related proposed tough terms to rescue the venture, including a provision that would eliminate the Trump Organization share of the profits and replace it with a fee for each condo unit sold.
Donald Trump Jr., 28 at the time, was furious.
“I hate related,” he wrote a Trump Organization colleague on Sept. 9, 2006. “this is b/s. I do not think we could have been more clear with these assholes less than 3 weeks ago and they are already back to the flat structure nonsense and connot consider giving trump a piece of the backend,” he vented to in-house attorney Diamond. “They must think we are the dumbest people on the fucking block.”...
The project was failing and this was the response the owners of the property received, "I hate related..."
The branding became the only viable solution for the company since they could not get funding anywhere in the USA.
...There were larger considerations to weigh, Donald Jr. noted. “I cannot stress enough the importance of not having any failures this early in the process of building up the licencing model,” which had emerged as the Trump Organization’s strategy.
Bad publicity was another. Forbes magazine was preparing a cover story on “The Real Apprentices” — how Trump’s children were faring as his prospective business successors. A failed deal on their watch would damage the narrative.
Wrote Donald Jr.: “With the Forbes piece underway and prob on stands in the next few weeks we will be under scrutiny more than ever and this presents us the opportunity to not only salvage a bad press situation but to potentially turn it inot a great thing for tyhe model if it makes sense. I.e. Trump saves the day…we will however have to do some real number crunching to see if it is in fact viable.”
On Oct. 2, Diamond emailed Ivanka that “either we swallow hard on the License Fee or take over the job, the latter being the least desired alternative.”
Ivanka, who had just turned 25, had another idea. She began talking up the Tampa deal to Wood Partners, a Georgia development firm she was working with on a massive planned “Trump Towers” project in downtown Atlanta. (That development never became a reality.)...
...The Riverside property was foreclosed on in 2009, then sold in 2015 for $12.1 million to a local developer, who announced his own plans to build “an iconic” 50-story tower — “the best building ever built in the Tampa market.”
Today the site remains vacant, a weedy, fenced-in lot along the Hillsborough River.
The branding became the only viable solution for the company since they could not get funding anywhere in the USA.
...There were larger considerations to weigh, Donald Jr. noted. “I cannot stress enough the importance of not having any failures this early in the process of building up the licencing model,” which had emerged as the Trump Organization’s strategy.
Bad publicity was another. Forbes magazine was preparing a cover story on “The Real Apprentices” — how Trump’s children were faring as his prospective business successors. A failed deal on their watch would damage the narrative.
Wrote Donald Jr.: “With the Forbes piece underway and prob on stands in the next few weeks we will be under scrutiny more than ever and this presents us the opportunity to not only salvage a bad press situation but to potentially turn it inot a great thing for tyhe model if it makes sense. I.e. Trump saves the day…we will however have to do some real number crunching to see if it is in fact viable.”
On Oct. 2, Diamond emailed Ivanka that “either we swallow hard on the License Fee or take over the job, the latter being the least desired alternative.”
Ivanka, who had just turned 25, had another idea. She began talking up the Tampa deal to Wood Partners, a Georgia development firm she was working with on a massive planned “Trump Towers” project in downtown Atlanta. (That development never became a reality.)...
...The Riverside property was foreclosed on in 2009, then sold in 2015 for $12.1 million to a local developer, who announced his own plans to build “an iconic” 50-story tower — “the best building ever built in the Tampa market.”
Today the site remains vacant, a weedy, fenced-in lot along the Hillsborough River.
It all fits. Yes, this is ONLY ONE PROJECT, but, the methods of handling their business were based in impropriety, hidden clauses the buyers never had the privilege of seeing and lack of simple vetting of a project before embarking on a project. That is a business model the Trumps used in their day to day activities.
These are the stories I find to be very sad. Instead of reassessing their future success, the Trumps decided to sell the "Trump" name as a method to wealth. It could have been legitimate, except, it was corrupt. When wealthy people can't come to terms with a loss of income that buoys their status, they turn to corruption and foreign interests that allow money laundering by purchasing American land/interests for far more than the purchase is actually worth.
Donald Trump has a false identity that carried him into the White House. That is a problem for the country because he also brings his taste for corruption with him. I think Donald Trump has a lot of bad habits, including, destroying the infrastructure of the Executive Branch of the USA government and replacing it with people loyal to him that are unqualified for the job, ie: Whitaker. The number of federal employees on unemployment is troubling.
These are the stories I find to be very sad. Instead of reassessing their future success, the Trumps decided to sell the "Trump" name as a method to wealth. It could have been legitimate, except, it was corrupt. When wealthy people can't come to terms with a loss of income that buoys their status, they turn to corruption and foreign interests that allow money laundering by purchasing American land/interests for far more than the purchase is actually worth.
Donald Trump has a false identity that carried him into the White House. That is a problem for the country because he also brings his taste for corruption with him. I think Donald Trump has a lot of bad habits, including, destroying the infrastructure of the Executive Branch of the USA government and replacing it with people loyal to him that are unqualified for the job, ie: Whitaker. The number of federal employees on unemployment is troubling.
