Tag: casinos

Chronicle of Bankruptcies Foretold: Trump’s First Stock Market Experience

Michael Matheron1 Comment

But It Was A Great Way for Investors to Avoid Inflation

Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino demolition, February 2021, one month after January 6th insurrection.

Most Trump watchers of the early 21st century learned to avoid any publicly traded stock offering having Donald Trump at the helm, i.e., Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc. Yes, was his Atlantic City casinos era, during which he managed to underperform the casino industry in a world famous manner. Rookie mistakes like saturating the casino market with multiple casinos to his own disadvantage, taking on massive. ultimately unpayable, debt, filing his company for bankruptcy a legendary four times. Of course, he – shameless – did well financially by having no real financial stake in his own company, yet, he siphoned off revenue from operations for himself in salaries, bonuses (for what?), licensing fees, and other sneaky deals. And, then, as now, he blamed others, lied outrageously, stiffed contractors, and all in all built the Donald Trump we know, the orange man-boy who would be king. (For a fine walk down casino lane see here.)

VOX’s Matthew Yglesias observed:

“Mom-and-pop investors who had the misfortune to put their confidence in Trump lost nearly everything. [see chart below] But as a performance of low cunning, his stewardship of THCR really did verge on genius. The company itself was a dumpster fire, losing money every year Trump served as chair. But he managed to personally pocket $44 million in salary and bonuses. Even more egregiously, he offloaded personal debts onto the corporate balance sheet and had the public company purchase services ranging from bottled water to plane flights from Trump’s privately held enterprises.”

Here’s an example from a regulatory filing, as you can see by comparing it to the stock price further below, the stock value was nearing single figures, down from its high of $240/share.

So, while the casino industry as a whole did well during the Trump era, Trump managed to quickly and forevermore collapse, basically due to both financial and management incompetence, and most of all chicanery, greed, and self-promotion at the highest levels.

Meet the New Trump, Same as the Old Trump

Those too young or too forgetful have yet to learn these lessons of the past as they lately dove into the shares of Trump’s second Wall Street adventure, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT) (see my previous post to learn how they’ve fared thus far). Some DJT investors lost 37.8% in first two weeks of trading.

Also, since much of the outstanding shares of DJT owned by large shareholders (Trump owns 58%) are not eligible to be traded before October 1 (called a “180 day lock-up”), the stock available to trade is approximately 25% of total shares outstanding. Thus, with larger shareholders on the sideline, trading has been allowable primarily amongst small shareholders, i.e., by MAGA’s Trump cult investors who have little to no understanding of what they’ve gotten into, and with whom. They’re the ones with losses, by and large. And for reasons alluded to above, and other technical/contractual ones, the outlook for the future is not inspiring. More on that in my next DJT posting . . .

EXXON Helps Greece with Cash Crisis – Buys Parthenon “On Spec”

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

June 29, 2011

“No more fooling around, not in this place.
We’ll pull our pants up and make a pile of money.”
Alexis Zorba . . . the Greek

Today, the Greek Parliament approved an austerity plan – favorable to Greek debt bondholders, if not to the mass of actual Greeks. Supplementing this, the parliament must approve a $70 billion privatization program permitting the government to sell public power and transportation companies, and other state-owned assets.  This would continue an asset sale program already in place.

Drilling for Assets.  EXXONis not especially known for its non-oil businesses, but this is going to change because of its “Buy Greece Now!” program announced this morning by Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil.  He explained, “It’s simple, we’ve got a kaboodle of cash just sitting in U.S. banks and a sh*tload of decaying T-Bills. Greece is a fairytale buying opp.  We’d love to invest in the United States, but until it falls into a real 1930’s depression, public lands and other federal and state assets are not at rock bottom prices we prefer. We’ve inquired about buying the Grand Canyon, for example, but GPO is still asking too much.  We’d surely love to drill there, but . . . Now Greece!  A copper-plated U.S. penny will get you a sawbuck’s worth of value. We’re all in.”

ExxonMobil hopes this will assist Greece in its struggle to avoid economic and social cataclysm, yet it’s shopping list is clearly aimed at buying low and generating income.  Chairman Tillerson revealed that ExxonMobil had on June 28th already made an initial purchase of a “property in Athens that has for many years occupied a perch overlooking the entire city. We feel we can develop this property for many uses and will be conferring with the Disney imagineers soon. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to operate it at a loss as a tourist attraction. We do have an option to sell back the property should it fail to produce something.”

Below is a photo of the property the day prior to its sale to ExxonMobil. They despair that this site has been maintained in this state for millennia, without significant modernization. 


Alarmingly, though, for EXXON, the Parthenon asset sale program has drawn the attention of Donald Trump who envisions leveling the “mound of disgustingly ugly ruins to transform it into a beautiful family fun putting green and casino.”