Trump likely to start selling assets to keep business afloat: NYT reporter

Former president Donald Trump likely will have to start selling some of his properties to raise cash in the wake of Mazars USA's decision to drop his company, according to New York Times investigative reporter Susanne Craig.

Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday night, Craig pointed out that in addition to Mazar's USA's decision, the Trump Organization and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg are currently under criminal indictment in Manhattan, meaning "covenants could be breached" on the company's loans.

"He has just in the coming couple of years, hundreds of millions of dollars in loans that he's going to have to re-negotiate," Craig said, adding that Trump appears to have retained another Texas-based firm to replace Mazars USA.

"He's moved to at least get another firm in place at least for some of his accounting, but what happens to all these loans?" she said. "If this was a public company, you'd be like, 'Wow!' It would just be so much trouble for them. I think their stock would tank. There would be so many ramifications."

Craig said the first major loan coming up is later this year, for $100 million on Trump Tower in New York City. She said despite declining occupancy rates in the building, she expects Trump to be able to refinance the loan, though possibly at a higher interest rate, because the lender is friendly to his company.

"But there are other loans that are going to be more difficult," she said, pointing to Trump's Doral resort in Florida, which is losing "a huge amount of money" despite him pumping $200 million in capital into it.

"I think when he comes up against that, there could be some problems," she said, adding that Deutsche Bank is the lender for Doral. "Deutsche Bank has been signaling that they may not want to do new business with him. None of this is good news. and when you think about how he's going to have to handle this immediate debt, there's going to be potentially higher rates, and in some cases I wonder who the lender is going to end up being."

Craig added that she was surprised by Trump's recent decision to sell his DC hotel.

"That's the last asset that he actually put a lot into, and he's selling it. He must need cash, or he wouldn't be selling it," she said. "And I think we're going to potentially see other asset sales here. Very few of the main assets, golf courses that he has, are making money. He's got golf courses overseas, none of them are making money. It's the exception when he has a business that is making money."

"I think that's what you're going to see as he moves forward in order to keep these other properties going," she said. "You start looking for where you can raise cash, and you do that by selling assets."

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