He’s back. After seeing his New Jersey casino empire slide into bankruptcy for a third time, real estate baron Donald J. Trump has returned to the table.
As part of a deal cut with bondholders and announced today, Trump will receive a 10% stake in a newly recapitalized company, which owns three casinos in Atlantic City that carry the Trump name.
In exchange Trump and his daughter Ivanka, both former board members, agreed to drop a lawsuit they had against the company. Trump will be free to use his name on other gambling ventures, just not in five neighboring states.
Trump left the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts in February. It is struggling under $1.7 billion in debt. “I have always felt a tremendous responsibility to New Jersey, and especially to Atlantic City,” he said after cutting this new deal.
Others parts of Trump’s empire—wobbly though it may be—continue to grow. The Trump Waikiki hotel opened this week in Hawaii and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat just recognized his Trump International Hotel and Towers in Chicago as the sixth largest building in the world thanks to a new way of measuring skyscrapers. Previously they were measured starting with the front entrance, but since many buildings have multi-level entrances, the new standard is the lowest pedestrian entrance.
