Former President Donald Trump, who reportedly has $590 million in debts due over the next four years, is set to receive a $617 million cash payout as part of a bond deal made by Vornado Realty Trust, his longtime majority-stake partners.
Trump apparently scored the massive $600-million plus in cash after investors bought up $1.2 billion of bonds tied to the refinancing of a San Francisco office tower, 555 California. Trump has a 30 percent minority stake in the building, which makes up a massive portion, as much as $800 million, of his entire net worth. Because Vornado holds the majority stake, Trump doesn't have any control over the two properties he owns with them, the second being 1290 Avenue of the Americans in New York City. The windfall he "stumbled into" comes at a great time for Trump, analysts said, because numerous banks and businesses cut ties with him in the wake of the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
The $617 million cash infusion from the Vornado refinancing in San Francisco is likely to precede another large payout for Trump's 1290 Avenue of the Americans office tower. Steve Roth, Vornado's chief executive officer, told investors this past week, that building is "on deck" for refinancing, Bloomberg News reported.
Trump has a lengthy financial record which includes numerous corporate bankruptcies, suing lenders and provoking nearly every bank except for Deutsche to run the other way. But with $617 million of cash and another lucrative refinancing deal about to fall in his lap, analysts said he may have already dug his way out of more than a half-billion of debt his Trump Organization has sat on since entering the White House.
"What the tax records for Mr. Trump's businesses show, however, is that he has lost chunks of his fortune even before depreciation is figured in," according to The New York Times in an eye-opening September 2020 report on Trump's federal income tax payments.
"To see what a successful business looks like, depreciation or not, look no further than one in Mr. Trump's portfolio that he does not manage...he ended up with a 30 percent share of two valuable office buildings owned and operated by Vornado. That's a $176.5 million share of profits for which he has never had to invest more money in the partnership," the Times report said, highlighting Trump as an overall liability to Vornado.
According to financial disclosure forms that first came to light in 2019, Trump has reported holding 14 loans on 12 properties. Six of those loans, representing around $479 million in debt, are due over the next four years—a debt that a cash-heavy Trump may now be able to pay.
"Trump has been an even less equal partner in the relationship than his 30 percent stake already implies. He more or less stumbled into the arrangement," Mother Jones' Russ Choma wrote Friday, noting that Trump's partnership role was greatly diminished after his "Trump City" project in the 1980s was a "huge flop."
Trump's tax returns, which The New York Times detailed last September, showed that Trump had $6.67 million in taxable interest—$6 million of which came from his investment with Vornado.
Newsweek reached out to Vornado's corporate offices as well as those for the Trump Organization Saturday morning.
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Benjamin Fearnow is a reporter based out of Newsweek's New York City offices. He was previously at CBS and Mediaite ... Read more
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