Donald Trump's son on the impact of the election on the family business
Nicole Sinclair
With presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump fully immersed in the election, his son, Eric Trump, sat down with Yahoo Finance at Trump Tower this week to talk about the state of the family business.
Eric Trump, 32, told Yahoo Finance his father has shifted his focus to his presidential campaign, leaving his three oldest children to run the Trump Organization.
“It’s really Ivanka, Don and I,” says Eric Trump, who’s vice president of development and acquisition for the Trump Organization. “My father’s put 100% of his attention on the campaign. It’s what he cares about. He’s groomed us very, very well. We’ve been in the business for a very long time, and we know the properties and assets and everything else better than anybody.”
The Trump Organization, which lists 515 subsidiaries, serves as the principal holding company for the Trump family. The company owns, operates, develops, invests in and licenses residential real estate, hotels, resorts, residential towers and golf courses.
The organization — which has divested properties including its Atlantic City casinos — owns the television production company that produces shows including “The Apprentice” and has made investments in areas including food and beverages, airlines and beauty pageants.
Value of the Trump name
In Donald Trump’s election financial disclosure, he estimated the value of the Trump brand to be $3 billion. And Eric Trump thinks that value has increased since his dad’s campaign began.
“I think if anything, it’s probably gone up,” Eric Trump said. “I mean, he’s the most talked-about person in the world. You know, the energy that’s behind him, the movement that he’s created, this kind of anti-politician, America First movement is really endemic.”
As for the economic impact of those who disagree with Trump’s politics?
“They probably weren’t our people anyway,” Eric Trump said. “They probably weren’t the people staying at our hotels and playing our golf courses. If you go to any of our courses, you speak to our members, every single one of them is wearing a Make America Great Again hat, and they love what we’re doing.”
State of the business
The Trump Organization is doing better than ever before, according to Eric Trump.
“Our hotels are doing the best they’ve ever done,” he said. “The golf courses are 100% full, they’re doing phenomenally well. Our projects overseas are all sold out. And the growth of our company year after year is just exponential.”
The company continues to invest heavily in real estate. Trump estimates that licensing makes up only 35% of the company currently.
“I’d say we do far more equity than we do licensing,” he said. “There are certain places in the world that make sense to go in and [do] licensing … But still, if you look at the projects that we’re doing, we’re far heavier on the equity side … We deploy hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars a year, in equity projects around the country and around the world. And we’ve been on a buying spree in the last 10 years.”
Trump said the organization is opening five hotels in the remainder of the year, including a hotel in the Old Post Office on 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC.
Eric Trump said the PGA’s decision was not related to the election, though.
“The title sponsor wanted to continue. They had a sponsor down in Mexico that wanted to pay a lot more money. So that’s why they ultimately moved. But we have an unbelievable relationship with the PGA Tour,” he said.
Cadillac said in a statement, “We are proud to have been the title sponsor of the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship since 2011. We have made the decision, however, not to extend our sponsorship beyond this year.”
At a news conference last month, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem initially said the move was a financial one that was driven by the decision by Cadillac not to renew its title sponsorship of the tournament. Fichem later said, however, “Donald Trump is a brand — a big brand — and when you are asking a [sponsor] to invest millions of dollars in branding a tournament and they’re going to share that brand with a host . . . it’s a difficult conversation. The politics may have contributed some since he’s been running.”
During his interview with Yahoo Finance, Eric Trump highlighted upcoming tournaments for the golf business — including the 2017 Women’s at Bedminster, the 2022 PGA Championship in Bedminster and the 2017 Senior PGA Championship in Washington DC.
“We have a million tournaments. That’s one of the things that we do so, so, so well, because we have the best courses in the world,” he added.
As the campaign wages on, Eric Trump remains confident in the underlying organization, describing it with superlatives his father has used.
“Our focus is building the best golf courses in the world. That’s what we do,” he said. “We have the best residential buildings in the world, the best commercial buildings in the world. We have some of the best retail in the world. That’s our core business, that’s what I do every day, that’s what we do every day. That’s what we’re passionate about.”
This is one part of a multi-part series of clips from the interview. Check back on Yahoo Finance for more from our sit-down with Eric Trump.
