Donald Trump, accompanied by, from left, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Trump, Melania Trump, Tiffany Trump and Ivanka Trump
Donald Trump says his business is “great,” and you’ll have to trust him on that. One of the few things an outsider can know for sure is that it’s a complex and opaque hodgepodge of an empire scattered around the globe.
Trump in May disclosed holdings in about 500 companies in at least 25 countries. But many of the 500 have no business operations, they’re shells set up to hold stakes in other companies, possibly to provide legal and tax protection. The disclosure document ran 104 pages, but revealed precious few details about how much each entity has borrowed, their profits, or purposes.
The details matter because government ethics experts note the possibility that Trump might be tempted to shape regulations, taxes and foreign policy to enrich himself or his business partners. Foreign governments could create plenty of trouble, too. They could seek to influence him by rewarding or punishing his business interests in their countries.
Trump had planned a news conference for today on the future of his business but announced Monday he would postpone it until next month. Trump transition team spokesman Sean Spicer said the legal team needs more time to work out a plan so “proper protocols are in place.”
In a tweet earlier this week, the president elect added that “no deals will be done” while he is in office and that he would leave management of his company to two of his children, Donald Jr., 38, and Eric, 32, along with executives. As in his previous statements, he left open the possibility of retaining his ownership stake.
What makes the situation so perilous is that no modern U.S. president has owned so much, had it spread so far around the globe, and disclosed so little.
Still, plenty is known about his company, the Trump Organization.
— Trump’s business ties abroad sprawl, but it’s not clear they run deep. Trump owns little overseas. Since losing nearly everything in the 1990s from a debt-fueled foray into casinos, he’s preferred to take care of his money and strike royalty deals that entail little more than renting out his name.
— Not every Trump building is owned by him. Many residential buildings bear his name, but many apartments in them have been sold off years ago. This is true of Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue where he lives and works and through whose gilded lobby he has been parading candidates for his cabinet.
— Ivanka, his 35-year-old daughter, is an executive vice president at the Trump Organization but also owns her own company selling clothes and jewelry. Likewise, her husband, Jared Kushner, runs his own real estate and construction business.
Below is a cheat-sheet of sorts on Trump’s holdings.
OVER THERE
Trump has his name on hotels, residential towers and resorts around the globe, from South Korea and Indonesia in Asia to Uruguay in South America and Turkey in the Middle East.
In Indonesia, he struck a deal for use of his name and management services for a resort and residential building in Bali owed by the MNC Group, a real estate company run by a politically active businessman, Hary Tanoesoedibjo. In his May disclosure, Trump said he made between USD1 million and $5 million in licensing fees for this deal in the prior 17 months, as well as for similar deals in Turkey, Panama, the Philippines and India.
His partner in the Philippines venture, E.B. Antonio, was just named a “special envoy” to the U.S. by his country’s president. Trump faced criticism after India’s Economic Times reported that he held a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan shortly after the election with business partners in one of two Indian ventures, two residential towers in Pune in the western part of the country.
The Trump Organization said before the election that it was looking to enter new countries. Several media outlets reported that Trump tried to speed along a project in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by mentioning it in congratulatory call from Argentine President Mauricio Macri. A Macri spokesman denied to The Associated Press that the subject even came up in the call.
Two other projects to watch: A complex of five office towers under development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that is tied up in a corruption investigation unrelated to Trump himself; and a stalled project in Baku, Azerbaijan, with the son of a government minister who was alleged in leaked diplomatic cables to have ties with an Iranian money launderer.
Trump’s tax returns might shed more light on his businesses abroad, but he didn’t release them during the campaign, breaking decades of precedent. As president, he is not required to publish public financial disclosures until his second year in office.
OFFICES, CONDOS, RETAIL
Much of Trump’s wealth is in just four buildings, according to Forbes magazine, which has been tracking his holdings for 33 years. Three of them are in Manhattan — a wholly owned office building on Wall Street and stakes in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and an office tower nearby in midtown — and one is in San Francisco.
Forbes’ estimate for the four buildings, after subtracting out debt on them owed by Trump: $1.5 billion, or 40 percent of the president-elect’s $3.7 billion total net worth. (Trump estimates his net worth at more than $10 billion and says the value of his brand name alone is nearly as much as the Forbes’ tally of everything.)
Among many other properties, Trump also has investments in a Chicago hotel and one in Las Vegas and, of course, the new Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. In the case of the latter, he doesn’t own the building, but rents it from the federal government.
GOLF CLUBS
Trump has been busy adding to his portfolio of golf properties in recent years, and here he has been risking his own money by taking ownership stakes. It’s a bold bet. The golf business in general is suffering as membership in clubs has fallen.
The Trump Organization has 17 golf courses in total. They include three in Florida, as well as links in California, New Jersey and New York. In 2014, Trump completed deals for Ireland’s Doonbeg golf club and Scotland’s Turnberry resort, the site of several British Opens. He has also struck deals to open two clubs in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Eric Trump, the president-elect’s son in charge of the courses, told the AP last year that they were doing “fantastically.” In his May disclosure, Trump reported $306 million in revenue from his courses, more than a third of that from the one in Doral, Florida.
Trump did not provide estimates of costs or profits from the courses, so it’s not clear how much they are bucking the industry trend, if at all. Bernard Condon, New York, AP
Rick Perry picked as energy secretary former Texas Gov. Rick Perry
President-elect Donald Trump has announced his selection of former campaign rival Rick Perry to be the country’s next secretary of energy.
In a statement yesterday on his decision, Trump said that Perry, a former governor of Texas, had led his state through “a sustained period of economic growth and prosperity” by developing its energy resources and infrastructure.
Trump says in his statement that his administration “is going to make sure we take advantage of our huge natural resource deposits to make America energy independent and create vast new wealth for our nation.”
Perry calls it “a tremendous honor” to be chosen for Trump’s Cabinet. Perry adds that he looks forward to “engaging in a conversation” about America’s energy future.
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