Trump Could Quickly Earn $100M With This Business Transaction

Former President Donald Trump could earn over $100 million in a business move that sees him selling the lease of a historic building in Washington D.C. to a Miami-based investment firm.

The Trump Organization has signed a contract with CGI Merchant to sell its lease of Washington’s Old Post Office Pavilion for a record-breaking $375 million, three people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity told The Washington Post.

Once the sale is complete, the Trump Organization would have to pay $170 million in loans to Deutsche Bank, from which it borrowed funding to renovate the historic building. The company would also have to pay the General Services Administration less than $10 million as part of a provision that says the agency receives 15% of any remaining proceeds from a sale. That leaves Trump with more than $100 million in potential profits.

In 2013, the Trump Organization signed a 60-year lease deal with the federal government to turn Washington’s historic Old Post Office Pavilion into a 275-room luxury hotel. The company spent $217 million transforming the building into a five-star hotel, including $194 million in redeveloping the entire building and $23 million on furniture. It opened its doors in October 2016.

However, financial documents released by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in October showed that Trump’s luxury hotel lost more than $70 million while he was in the White House.

Should the sale be completed, it would become the highest per-room price paid for a hotel in Washington D.C., eclipsing Rosewood Hotel — previously Capella Hotel Georgetown — that sold for approximately $1.3 million per room.

Hotel brokers noted that the nature of the building, which is 122 years old, and its location could be the factors that drove up the price of the contract. The proposed sale of the lease would mean that each room in the Old Post Office Pavilion costs about $1.43 million.

“How often do you have a hotel built the way that hotel was built?” Dan Hawkins of Berkadia Real Estate Advisors told The Post. “Pure granite. Ideally positioned between the White House and the Capitol.”

CGI Merchant plans to rebrand the hotel located near the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street into a Waldorf Astoria, in partnership with Hilton Worldwide.