Eric Trump is in driver’s seat as Trump Org reopens properties

President’s son now looking to expand to international luxury hotel market; family firm tallied $1M in losses to its properties at pandemic’s height

Eric Trump with Trump National Doral Miami (Getty, Trump Org)
Eric Trump with Trump National Doral Miami (Getty, Trump Org)

One of the Trump family’s most profitable pieces of real estate, Trump Doral golf resort in Miami, has reopened in Florida as Covid-19 infections spike across the state. In early April, the property had to furlough 500 employees, after it was forced to close.

President Trump’s son, Eric, who now leads the Trump Organization, is steering the company through the reopenings, according to the Wall Street Journal. That included reopening Trump National Doral Miami, located in a county that just cracked the top 10 for number of coronavirus infections nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Highly dependent on the leisure industry, properties belonging to the Trump Organization were losing $1 million a day at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Trump Organization, which cannot tap public funds through the CARES Act, also asked Palm Beach County for rent relief on its Trump International Golf Club. It cited the “significant impact” to the club that the shutdowns had caused. The company also asked lenders for relief on a loan against its retail space at the base of Trump Plaza on New York’s Upper East Side.

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But company executives say Eric Trump’s attentiveness to paying down debt — an approach to running the business that differs from his father, who once called himself “king of debt” — as well as the firm’s more stable revenue from office space, have allowed the Trump Organization to better weather the Covid storm, the Journal reported.

But the Trump Organization may also sell its stake in a pair of big-ticket office towers — and face a politically fraught tax bill — in 1290 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan and 555 California Street in San Francisco.

Plans to expand the company were put on hold after Donald Trump was elected president. The Journal reported that when Trump leaves office, his son will look to expand into the international luxury hotel market, preferring to operate hotels rather than own them. [WSJ] — Orion Jones