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.
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.
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.
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.
All the while, the course's expenses increased 22%, including Trump's management fees, which were about 4.5% of annual revenues, or more than $600,000 by the end of 2012. Ultimately, with about $78 million in debt and only $9 million in assets, the golf club sold for $2 million.
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 .
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.
When the Trump International Golf Club in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, filed for bankruptcy in July 2015 — just a month after Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign — Trump's family did everything they could to distance themselves from the failed project. "This has absolutely nothing to do with Trump. This is a separate owner. We purely manage the golf course," Eric Trump told Bloomberg at the time.
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.
Russian-born Felix Sater worked at Bayrock, a New York-based firm that partnered with Donald Trump on real estate deals in the early 2000s, including Trump SoHo. Prior to that, Sater was a Wall Street broker until serving a year in prison for stabbing a man in the face with a margarita glass during a bar fight. See full story .
Mehta attended the University of Pennsylvania, like Trump and three of the president's children. The Trump Organization "took a bold bet on India several years ago," Mehta says. "Recognizating that it is a complex market, they have been flexible and willing to go above and beyond."
Donald Trump "bankrupted" a golf course in Puerto Rico, leaving taxpayers there on the hook for $33 million worth of debt.
His role in the bankruptcy of the company, which ended up costing Puerto Rican taxpayers $32.6 million, was significant but limited. That $32.6 million loss constituted 0.03 percent of the territory’s total $123 billion debt, which prompted the Puerto Rican government to file for bankruptcy relief in May 2017.
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 Rico’s Tourism Development ...
Further, for this lack of success, Trump International garnered a total of $609,607 in management fees between 2008 and 2012. (This figure is likely the source of Lainie Green’s reference to a “$600,000 paycheck” received by Donald Trump.)
Holding Trump to be solely or primarily responsible for the bankruptcy of a business they didn’t own, that was already heavily in debt, and was losing several million dollars a year before Trump arrived on the scene would be something of an unfair standard.
What's False. 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.
The continued operations of the Partnership are dependant [sic] upon the ability of the Club to attract customers and control operating expenses. Trump International Co. (Club Manager) has developed a plan to achieve and maintain positive operating cash flows sufficient to allow the Partnership to continue as a going concern. In particular, the Club Manager [Trump International] has developed programs to attract members and use the Club, while containing operating costs.
About six months after the bonds were sold, the resort starting missing payments, citing “financial difficulties.” The project limped along with the government repaying bondholders and the resort owner continuing to lend it millions to cover losses. The company also quietly sought to unload the resort, according to bankruptcy filings last year. But no buyers emerged.
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.
The club got a boost in visibility when, in 2008, it started hosting Puerto Rico’s only PGA Tour event, the Puerto Rico Open. Financially, however, little changed at the resort in Trump’s first three years as manager. Yet in 2011, when the company returned to seek government support for another round of financing, it presented Trump’s plans as central to the project’s future prospects, according to official documents used to market the bonds to investors
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.
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.”
Last July, after 11 years of losses, the Coco Beach club filed for bankruptcy protection. Responding to an inquiry from Bloomberg News, Eric Trump minimized his father’s role in the mess. “This has absolutely nothing to do with Trump,” he said. “This is a separate owner. We purely manage the golf course.”
The Trump Organization declined to comment on the project; the resort’s developers, the Díaz family, best known for owning the road-building business Betterroads Asphalt, did not respond to requests for comment left with their main business, Empresas Díaz.
After purchasing the Miami area's venerable Doral Resort in 2013, the famed Blue Monster was immediately shut down after the 2013 Cadillac Championship for an extensive redesign at the hands of architect Gil Hanse. The result was a bigger, bolder -- yet in some ways more playable course that greeted players in 2014. (Green fees: $225-395)
Gil Hanse officially reopened the Red Tiger the week of the 2015 WGC Cadillac Championship and is meant to be a far more playable and resort-style course to the Blue Monster. Hanse also updated Golden Palm, which features a links-style feel with a smattering of palm trees. (Green fees: $135-225)
The Silver Fox is the former Jim McLean Signature Course, named for the resident teaching guru. It was updated from the original Silver Course by McLean in 2009 but enhanced once again when Trump took over. The course is located off-property just west of the main resort. (Green fees: $105-175)
What was originally Trump's only public layout, Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles overlooks the Pacific Ocean and comes equipped with a smattering of waterfalls and other lavish finishes. It's an extravagent experience from the time you pull in to the time you depart.
Located just north of Aberdeen, Donald Trump brought his brand to Scotland, the birthplace of his mother and where he has a great affinity for the game. His style didn't always mesh with some local opposition of the course, but after numerous delays, the course was finally built.
The ink was barely dry on the Doonbeg purchase before Trump scooped up the fabled Turnberry Resort in the spring of 2014 from Dubai-based Leisure Corp. Having said one day he plans to host an Open Championship on one of his courses, owning Turnberry -- along with his course in Aberdeen, gives him a pretty good shot.
In early 2014, Trump purchased the lodge and 18-hole links course at Doonbeg in County Clare, about a half hour's drive from 19th century marvel Lahinch Golf Club. The course had suffered a rough winter of coastal damage and Martin Hawtree is overseeing a renovation project. (Green fees: €150-180).