Trump Says He’d Sell It All : He Denies His Empire Is in Danger
Donald Trump, whose acquisitions have become legendary, said today that he has discussed selling or refinancing virtually every major asset he owns.
Trump, proclaiming he “wants to be the king of cash,” said he is discussing selling the Trump Shuttle airline, and he reportedly is considering deals involving his Trump Tower, the Grand Hyatt in New York and his three casinos.
Trump, who would stand to lose a chunk of his fortune if he and his estranged wife, Ivana, divorce, insisted that his empire is not in danger and says he wants the cash so he can scoop up bargains in a sputtering real estate market.
“What I want to do is go out and bargain hunt,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I want to be the king of cash.”
The casino and real estate mogul has hired Merrill Lynch & Co. to negotiate a possible sale of the Trump Shuttle less than a year after buying the carrier and attaching his name to it.
“If I got the right offer, I would consider selling it,” Trump told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.
When Trump acquired the carrier with bank loans from Eastern Airlines last year for $365 million, he said he wanted to transform it into “one of the really fine airlines in the world.”
Trump said he is weighing a sale because he has been approached by numerous parties interested in it. He declined to say whether he is making money on the shuttle or to identify the potential buyers.
“We’ve been engaged to explore strategic alternatives for the shuttle,” Merrill Lynch spokesman Fred Yager said. He declined to elaborate.
The Journal published details of Trump’s financial plans today after an interview with him.
Trump denied that his empire faces any cash shortage problems, saying he has cash reserves of $380 million.
The Journal’s account said Trump was so adamant about his cash strength that he threatened to sue the newspaper if it suggested otherwise. Later a Trump spokesman said he wouldn’t sue the paper.
Among his assets are New York’s Plaza Hotel, the glitzy Trump Tower skyscraper on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, and casinos in Atlantic City, N.J., including the $1-billion Taj Mahal casino, which recently opened with much fanfare.
Trump said he is interested in raising cash today so that he will have funds on hand in the future to acquire additional properties.
The Journal reported that Trump is working on refinancing his Trump Tower and the Grand Hyatt, and that he is considering going public with his Atlantic City casino-hotels.
“Going public would be one of the easy things in life,” he was quoted as saying.
However, Trump told the Associated Press that The Plaza and Trump Tower will not be sold.
Some people in the financial community are watching for signs that Trump might be accumulating cash to cope with a current or anticipated cash crunch caused by a heavy debt load.
Several of Trump’s biggest holdings don’t produce enough income to cover interest payments on loans taken out to pay for the acquisitions.
