'Desperate' Trump could be 'forced into a fire sale' of his real estate portfolio: expert
Trump may have to part with his real estate crown jewels.
If Trump can't produce the nearly $500 million in civil judgments and he's unable to back up the billionaire baron image that he's sold himself — he may be forced to unload many his bountiful assets at rock bottom prices.
"He doesn't have the cash right now," said Forbes Senior Editor Dan Alexander, appearing on CNN on Friday. "Especially if you add on that penalty with that interests and the E. Jean Carroll penalty, which comes to with the two rulings on that comes at $88 million altogether, you're looking at over half a billion right now."
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Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump and his businesses to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars for widespread fraud over several years where Trump and his company hyped up the assets on financial statements to procure favorable loans and deals.
It also is seeking much smaller sums from Trump's grownup sons, Eric and Don Jr., as well as former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
The ordered payment comes days after Trump was similarly ordered to pay $83.3 million to columnist Carroll for her second defamation trial where she was called a liar for accusing him of sexually accosting her inside of a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman back in mid-1990s.
Alexander says the 45th president claims he has "roughly $400 million in cash" but even if that's true he admits "that's not going to be enough."
"And remember that you can't just empty out your coffers and say, 'Okay, now I'm down to zero! I'm still going to operate a major real estate company!' He needs to have some cushion here."
So that means either he figures out how to pool his wealth or find a bank that's not registered in New York, or he might head to "plenty of rich guys" who might be keen on lending funds to the GOP frontrunner to nab the nomination right now.
But Alexander notes that money would likely be transactional because whoever gifts him $100 million here or $200 million there "may have good interests and wanting to do that for somebody who might become the President of the United States here in about a year."
Failing those options, Trump must dump his assets.
"But Donald Trump has always been reluctant to sell things for what they're actually worth, not to mention, much less than they're actually worth."
"And he could be forced into a fire sale here and get really desperate."