by Lynette Alice

Created on: February 28, 2010

How much money Donald Trump is actually worth and whether or not his reputation for being a financial wizard has not only been disputed regularly the past few years, but it looks like Trump may actually be a bad businessman. In fact, a very bad one. The Donald would vehemently argue against this and tell you his name is the most valuable in not only the country but the world as it is synonymous with luxury, power, wealth and style. The evidence against all of that may surprise you if you are a fan of Donald Trump however.

To get an accurate look at Trump, his fortune, and his history in business you have to go back to the beginning. Not everyone is aware that Trump did not build his fortune on hard work and his own ingenuity - he inherited it. Trump got his start working for his father who brought him into his real estate development firm. Donald Trump did have one particular strength which was selling his father’s name and reputation to secure favorable terms on little or no collateral deals - something he would do with his own later. He did move his father from middle class styled housing into commercial development. Nobody can take that away from him as they were good moves at the time.

When Trump finally took control of the company in full is when the problems started. Trump has often alluded that it was the economy that was the problem and not him, and that many real estate developers went under at the same time. The problem with that however is that during the 1980’s real estate development was booming. Even halfway competent real estate developers were making money hand over fist until 1989. Why wasn’t Trump? The crux of the problem seemed to rest in the fact that all those low and no collateral deals that vaulted him to prominence came back to bite him. It only took one failed project to set in motion a string off events where he suddenly had to start raising money to pay creditors.  On paper, Trump was very wealthy. In tangible assets however he had very little aside from his personal holdings which were not enough to satisfy his corporate debts even if he chose to do so. This lead to bankruptcy number one which was just above two billion dollars of debt.

Trump did resurrect the company briefly while fully insulating his personal assets, but his personal assets were not overwhelmingly large in terms of how people think of Trump. Much of his worth was tied to stock prices and when the stock collapsed so did his billion dollar image.

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