What happened to Puerto Rico's Trump Golf Club?
Puerto Rico had been hard hit by a recession, and the club had taken on substantial debt and was suffering annual losses for years before Trump's company intervened.
Did Donald Trump set Coco Beach Golf and Country Club on course?
Donald Trump did not set Coco Beach Golf and Country Club on course for ruin, but he wasn’t able to save it from that fate. His role in the bankruptcy of the company, which ended up costing Puerto Rican taxpayers $32.6 million, was significant but limited.
How much did it cost to build the Puerto Rico golf resort?
In 2000 and 2004, Puerto Rico’s Industrial, Tourist, Educational, Medical and Environmental Control Facilities Financing Authority (AFICA) issued the owners of the club a total of $25,497,854 in bonds to help build and launch the resort.
How did Trump’s deal with the owners of Mar-a-Lago work?
Under the agreement, the future president’s company licensed the Trump name to the owners and took on a share of the resort’s day-to-day management in exchange for a fee.
What was the unemployment rate in Puerto Rico in 2008?
So by the time the club and the Trump Organization were first joining forces, Puerto Rico's unemployment rate was already climbing. It rose from 10.6 percent in March 2008 to an eventual peak of 17 percent in May 2010.
What is Section 936 in Puerto Rico?
Puerto Rico had lost a powerful economic driver the previous year: the so-called Section 936 federal tax write-off for companies with money-earning subsidiaries on the island. The tax shelter had been especially popular with the pharmaceutical industry.
When did Trump International Golf Club go bankrupt?
When the Trump International Golf Club filed for Bankruptcy in July 2015 -- just a month after Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign -- Trump's family members did everything they could to distance themselves from the failed project. See full story.
Why did Trump abandon Mar-a-Lago?
In 2006, Trump and billionaire condo king Jorge Perez began selling a 23-story apartment building near Trump's exclusive club, Mar-a-Lago, but the project was abandoned a year later because of slow sales.
How many stories are there in the Trump Hotel?
The 13-story Trump hotel should have been a sun-kissed shoreline landmark. Instead, the project remains 40% incomplete, and the developer has become ensnared in a corruption investigation. See full story .
When did Trump buy the 1290 Avenue of Americas?
In 1994 a group of Chinese investors bailed Trump out of a debt-laded property on New York City's Upper West Side but kept him on as a 30% partner. Twelve years later they flipped the property for $1.76 billion and used the proceeds to buy 1290 Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan and the 555 California Street in San Francisco. See full story.
Did Donald Trump fail in Vegas?
Donald Trump famously failed in Atlantic City, but he’s scored big in Vegas, courtesy of his partner, billionaire Phil Ruffin—who is taking steps to open a new Trump casino there. See full story .
Who is the developer of Trump International Hotel?
Alex Shnaider, the developer behind the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Toronto, reportedly made moves to take the New York developer's name off the building in 2015, after Trump started running for president. See full story .
Is Hary Tanoesoedibjo a Trump?
Hary Tanoesoedibjo shares more than luxury resorts with the 45th president. The Indonesian billionaire has turned himself into a full-fledged mini-Trump, down to the beauty pageants, TV shows and incessant tweeting. And he’s now laying the groundwork to become president of the world’s fourth-largest country. See full story .
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The Trump family distanced itself from the project’s failure, claiming that the real estate developer merely licensed his name to the property. But a review of hundreds of pages of corporate and legal filings, undertaken by BuzzFeed News, shows that Trump promised the club’s investors and the government of Puerto Rico something entirely different.
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The two courses of what was first named the Coco Beach Golf & Country Club cover a peninsula on the island’s northeast corner, near the El Yunque rainforest. The surrounding resort includes a luxury hotel, timeshares, and the Trump Founders Residences, condos whose buyers are required to join the golf club.
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In effect, Trump was guaranteed income even if the project lost money; by the end of 2012, he had claimed more than $600,000.
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To Craig McCann, of the Securities Litigation and Consulting Group, who has testified in cases involving Puerto Rico municipal bonds, Trump’s promise to put the club in the black was “ridiculous on its face.” McCann wondered “how this statement can be made repeatedly when the resort had huge negative cash flows every year from 2008 when Trump took over to 2012 and beyond.”.
Premise
Aftermath
- In the aftermath of a series of hurricanes in September 2017 particularly Maria, which devastated the United States territory of Puerto Rico President Donald Trump reflected on the infrastructural damage caused by those storms in a 25 September 2017 tweet:
Reactions
- In response, public relations and marketing executive Lainie Green issued a series of tweets that went viral, accusing President Trump of having added to Puerto Ricos debt by bankrupting a golf course there and defaulting on $33 million worth of government-issued bonds:
Ownership
- According to documents first detailed in a 2016 BuzzFeed investigation, in 2008 Trump International entered into an arrangement with the owners of Coco Beach Golf & Country Club, a foundering resort and golf course that had opened in 2004 on the northeast coast of Puerto Rico about 30 miles from San Juan. Under the agreement, the future presidents company licensed th…
Controversies
- By October 2011, Coco Beach had defaulted on $26 million in bonds and had to seek another round of financing. In 2015, the company filed for bankruptcy under its original name, Coco Beach Golf and Country Club, citing debts of more than $78 million but only $9 million in assets. Bankruptcy court records show that Puerto Ricos Tourism Development Fund made a claim of $…
Analysis
- The evidence shows that Coca Beach had consistently been operating at a loss and accumulating debts in the years before Trump International became involved with its management. And a significant portion of the financial assistance provided by the Puerto Rican government was given in 2000 and 2004, well before the future U.S. presidents company arrived on the scene.
Funding
- However, one could argue that Trump International received a good deal of money from the Coco Beach deal yet failed to turn the club around, or even stanch its financial bleeding. According to the March 2011 bond offering (which was itself required to cover losses on the Puerto Rican governments 2000 and 2004 bond investments), Trump International had given certain assuranc…
Results
- Whatever that plan was, it did not succeed. The 2012 financials show that the clubs average annual losses rose to $6.3 million during the period that Trumps company provided management services to the resort (2008-2012), $1 million more per year than the business had been losing before. Further, for this lack of success, Trump International garnered a total of $609,607 in man…