So Trump Entertainment Resorts has such little worth that it’s facing delisting, having become quite literally a penny stock. In a move described as “petulant,” not only is Donald Trump taking his ball and going home, he wants the name of the company changed.
He claims he could have done better, had he simply been allowed to exercise his incomparable casino mojo … but this emperor’s been naked for the better part of a decade. As for the “wasteful spending” he decries, one can only guess he’s referring to the capital improvements at Trump Taj Mahal (the sort of thing Trump himself could rarely be bothered with) which have goosed business there substantially.
The already discounted sale of Trump Marina to Richard Fields (who hasn’t lined up the dough and recently liquidated his Manhattan pied-a-terre) looks shakier than ever — and it was not a deal that inspired confidence to begin with. Trump’s tantrum could easily kill it outright. Fields’ company is hemming and hawing ominously. And if that sale doesn’t come through, one analyst predicts a “death spiral” for TER.
Bloviation alert: Trump disses own casinos, says they’re not worth beans.
Meanwhile, the Trumpster is engaging in a little revisionist history, complaining that the company hasn’t diversified outside Atlantic City. Oh, its various incarnations have tried. A Trump-branded riverboat in Gary, Ind. (now Don Barden‘s Majestic Star II) enjoyed an early vogue, then went into steep decline. A Trump tribal-casino-management arrangement in California was short-lived. An effort to get in on the Philadelphia market went nowhere, except to court. As always with Trump, when in doubt … sue!
Contrary to Trump’s ever-bombastic contentions, things are not coming up roses for him elsewhere, either. (On a personal note, I balked at purchasing an otherwise appealing necktie at Filene’s Basement because it bore the Trump moniker on the reverse. Would you call that “negative brand equity”?)
About the only good thing that’s come out of Trump’s insufferable TV series, The Apprentice, is that the mainstream media finally began paying attention to the thing of smoke and mirrors that was Trump’s casino kingdom.
