Six takeaways from Trump’s new financial disclosure

WASHINGTON - Former United States president Donald Trump provided the first look at his

post-presidency business dealings

on Friday with a new personal financial disclosure.

Though light on specifics, the documents filed with the federal Office of Government Ethics revealed lower-than-expected values on his social media company, two additional hefty bank loans and a new income stream for former first lady Melania Trump.

The former president filed his disclosure after requesting multiple extensions. He had been warned that he would face fines if he failed to file within 30 days of a March 16 deadline.

The financial disclosure shows cumulative income from January 2021 to December 15, 2022, as required by the Federal Election Commission, and the value of assets as of December 2022, according to a person familiar with the documents.

Here are six takeaways from the 101-page filing.

Trump’s social media company takes a valuation hit

The disclosure valued the parent company of Truth Social, the former president’s social media platform and personal megaphone, at between US$5 million (S$6.7 million) and US$25 million.

That reported value for the parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, was considerably less than the potential US$9 billion valuation for the company when it announced a merger in October 2021 with a cash-rich special purpose acquisition company called Digital World Acquisition.

The estimate reflected the current value of Trump’s holding and was not an attempt to price the assets after a potential estimate, a person familiar with the filing said.

Still, the intrinsic value of Trump Media is considerably less than he had hoped for when he launched the company in early 2021.

The merger deal has been held up by dual investigations by federal prosecutors and securities regulators, causing the stock of Digital World to tumble from a high of US$97 a share to its current price of US$13.10 a share.

Still, if the deal is ever completed, it will bring at least US$300 million in badly needed cash to Trump Media and potentially increase Trump’s paper wealth by a considerable amount.

And Trump stands to get 70 million shares.

Trump’s online trading cards show underwhelming early sales

Late last year, Trump announced a foray into digital assets known as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.

Trump Cards, virtual trading cards illustrated with a variety of cartoonish images of the former president, first went up for sale on December 15, 2022.

Expectations for the deal – orchestrated by Bill Zanker, a serial entrepreneur who had previously co-authored a book with Trump and paid him millions of dollars in speaking fees – were high: NFTs had commanded stunning prices in recent years, with one single token topping US$22 million in early 2022.

Privately, Trump had been assured the venture could hit as much as US$100 million in sales, but early returns suggested a less spectacular outcome, with analysts estimating less than US$6 million in total revenue by early February.

Trump’s new financial disclosure states that the company he created for the NFT project, CIC Digital LLC, had between US$100,001 and US$1 million in income.

But because the filing cuts off on December 15, 2022 – the exact day that Trump Cards began trading – it was unclear how much of the early sales of the NFTs was included.

Public data on cryptocurrency trading shows that 44,000 of the Trump Cards were sold, at US$99 apiece, in the first 24 hours of trading.

In addition, numerous cards were sold on the secondary market on December 15, each of which would net a royalty of 10 per cent under terms of the offering.

Mr Zanker has declined requests to comment on how sales of the Trump Cards are split or what overhead costs might be.

But the report does provide one clue about the deal from Trump’s perspective.

It lists the overall value of CIC Digital at between US$500,000 and US$1 million – suggesting that the NFT venture may not represent the vast windfall it was supposed to be.

One executive said the income listed in the financial report did not reflect much of the money Trump has made in NFT sales.

Overall, several million dollars of Trump NFTs have been sold, the executive said, with the bulk of the gross sales going to Trump under terms of the deal.

Separately, the report showed Trump earned “over US$5 million” through CIC Ventures, an unconnected but similarly named company formed in 2021.

That income was described as being for speaking engagements, which most likely included the campaign-style events he held before becoming an official candidate in November.

Trump paid off certain loans, but took out others

Since leaving office, Trump has paid off six outstanding loans, including ones valued at more than US$50 million on Trump Tower in New York and Trump Doral, a golf club outside Miami that has been his family company’s single-biggest revenue-generating property.

He also took out new loans, both from Axos Bank and totalling more than US$50 million each, on the Trump Tower and Doral properties.

He also paid off a loan valued at more than US$50 million on Trump Old Post Office, the Washington hotel he sold last year.

Most of the loans he had received from Deutsche Bank, which once totalled more than US$295 million, have now been paid off, leaving only about US$45 million still owed to the bank, which was once a major lender to Trump.

In total, Trump listed more than US$200 million in debts.

Trump saw new income from a deal with a Saudi-based firm

The financial disclosure shows the first payments to Trump for a new deal backed by a Saudi Arabia-based real estate investment firm to build a new golf and hotel complex in Oman. The payments so far are listed simply as worth more than US$5 million.

The project is slated to be built in Muscat, Oman, on a hillside adjacent to the Gulf of Oman, and will include a golf resort, villas and two hotels, a company executive said.

The Trump family is teaming up with Dar Al Arkan, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest real estate companies, for the project.

The government of Oman owns the land, meaning Trump is now essentially in a business deal with the government there.

Mrs Trump reports a fresh revenue stream

The former first lady incorporated one company, MKT World LLC, in 2021, using the same address as Trump International Golf Club, according to Florida Department of State records. The company reported earning royalties of between US$1 million and US$5 million.

While the company’s exact business dealings were unclear, Mrs Trump has found multiple ways to monetize her ties to Trump since leaving the White House.

In January 2022, she put up for auction a digital portrait of herself by a French artist, a print of the portrait and a white hat she once wore at the White House while meeting the president of France.

She also joined the conservative social-media site Parler, which announced a deal with Mrs Trump whose financial terms were not disclosed.

In a statement, she said she would provide the site exclusive content “to inspire others” and promote a series of future online auctions of “collectibles” like the hat she wore at the White House.

Trump revealed fewer details this time

Trump’s financial disclosures were closely tracked during his first White House run and his presidency.

The filings provided notable insights about the effect that holding office had on his wealth. And while much of his income and assets were reported only in wide ranges, Trump had previously reported specific amounts of income from certain properties.

That all changed in his latest filing.

This time, all of Trump’s income was reported in broad ranges – which is all that the federal law requires.

For example, Trump reported that revenue from Mar-a-Lago, his South Florida resort, totalled US$24.2 million in 2020, an increase of 13 per cent from the previous year.

In his latest report, he reported that the resort earned “over US$5 million” – the highest disclosure in the filing, which ultimately makes it difficult for voters to get a clear picture of his finances.

Mr Eric Trump, who helps run the family company, said in a statement Friday that the financial disclosure reflected a diversified real estate and media company that is relatively healthy.

“We have tremendous cash, maintain incredibly low debt relative to the value of our assets,” he said in a statement.

He did not address the various legal challenges and investigations the family is facing. NYTIMES