Word: reale
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Donald Trump has never been accused of subtlety. So there is nothing retiring about the celebrity real-estate magnate's venture into Panama. His 70-floor sail-shaped Trump Ocean Club, under construction in Panama City's exclusive Punta Pacifica district, will be the largest and most expensive building ever built south of the Rio Grande. "Nothing like this has ever been attempted in Latin America," says head developer Roger Khafif, whose K Group construction firm is handling the $400 million project. "When you think of Sydney you think of the Opera House, when think of Paris you think...
...Khafif sounds proprietary about something with Trump's name on it, it's because the project was his idea in the first place. When the Colombian-born developer came up with the plans for the building in 2005, amid Panama City's real-estate explosion, he realized it was too big to be financed without a major-league brand name. Khafif knew that Trump had been in Panama in 2003 for the Miss Universe Pageant, so he asked a mutual friend to set up a meeting in New York. "I know the guy has an ego and likes pretty things...
...hates to fly or leave the country." The day after the meeting, Khafif said he received an early morning phone call. "I hear a voice that sounded like Trump, but I thought it was friend who can imitate voices. Two minutes later I realized I was talking to the real thing and I had to apologize," admitted Khafif, who speaks in a quick and seamless flow between Spanish and English, oftentimes switching languages several times in the same sentence. Trump, perhaps accustomed to telling people it's him and not an impersonator on the phone, told Roger, "I love...
More expensive than Miami real estate and priced three-to-eight times higher than property in the rest of the Panamanian market, the Trump Ocean Club is partially financed by a $230 million bond offering from Bear Sterns. That bond is now being handled by JP Morgan following the collapse of Bear Sterns in the 2008 global financial crisis. "Without Trump, we would have lost our shirt," Khafif admits. Since then, more than 2,000 construction workers add a new floor each week, silencing many of the earlier skeptics who claimed the project would never get off the ground...
...true. But is that because banks are overly cautious and asset-impaired or because businesses are uncertain about the future - or just aren't creditworthy borrowers? A recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Business found that companies that couldn't borrow typically had declining sales or depressed real estate values. Simply opening the lending spigot doesn't seem to be the answer...