Los Angeles Business Journal: Managing celebrity

IN America, being on TV is everything. For proof, see Donald Trump.

His public record for management is horrible. Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., which operates three gambling spots in Atlantic City, N.J., has lost money in each of its eight years as a shareholder-owned company, and has finally gone broke.

No matter. Donald Trump, who also runs privately owned real estate ventures, is a TV star. His career-long effort at self- aggrandizement--publishing books and dating bimbos--reached the peak this year with his role in "The Apprentice." People actually watched week after week as several candidates competed for a job with a man who purportedly was a great manager.

If Trump Hotel is a guide, all Trump can teach anybody about managing is this: Sell more bonds than you could ever possibly pay back, let the competition eat your lunch, live the good life as chief executive--and then go bankrupt.

Last week, Trump Hotels bondholders agreed to wipe out about $544 million of the gambling company's debt of $1.8 billion. Shareholders already have been wiped out, unless you consider 54 cents a share, closing price on Aug. 12, the start of a nest egg.

As part of the deal, Credit Suisse First Boston and possibly Trump himself will put $400 million of new cash into the gaming company. Of that, Trump can put in as much as $55 million, if he chooses. He also will give $15.9 million in Trump Hotels bonds back to the company.

Trump's personal equity stake in the company would be reduced to about 25 percent from 56 percent, Scott Butera, Trump Hotels vice president, said, and Trump will be stripped of his CEO title.

He will continue as chairman, however, at a salary of $2 million a year, more than the $1.5 million he got in 2003. What's more--this is the best part--Trump Hotels gets "a perpetual and exclusive worldwide trademark license, royalty free" to use Trump's name and likeness to promote the casinos.

That's the power of television. Trump's value is entirely in his ridiculously coiffed image.

His management record at Trump Hotels shows a cumulative loss of $443 million as a public company. Interest payments totaling $1.7 billion in those eight years left,the company without sufficient funds for capital improvement that might have allowed its Atlantic City casinos to compete.

Trump's mismanagement of his public company makes you wonder just how well, or poorly, he manages his privately held real estate businesses, which include condominiums in New York and a planned condominium building in Chicago.

Disclosure of any troubles there wouldn't hurt Trump. He's a celebrity, ranking with the bug-eaters, lewdsters and screamers who dominate TV. Total failure would only increase his stature.