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Stunning new analysis from Bloomberg of the financial trouble Kushner Cos. is in
thanks to delusional deals and plans.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-kushners-china-deal-flop-was-part-of-much-bigger-hunt-for-cash/
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away. His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood. As a result, the company faces significant challenges.
-snip-
This article, which describes new details of the company’s troubled finances and its overseas fundraising efforts, is based on a review of thousands of pages of financial documents and interviews with more than two dozen executives, business partners, real estate agents, deal participants and analysts. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deals. Some feared legal reprisals or other retaliation from one of the country’s most powerful families.
-snip
The arrest and its coverage made Jared’s entry into the company hierarchy a crucible and strengthened his already fierce attachment to his father. During Charlie Kushner’s 14-month incarceration in an Alabama penitentiary, Jared flew down every Sunday. For years, he carried a wallet his dad had made him in the prison workshop. While his father was behind bars, Jared bought the New York Observer newspaper as a platform to reach the Manhattan elite and began pushing for the company to leave New Jersey behind. He ultimately set his sights on 666 Fifth.
-snip-
As the building’s fate became increasingly bleak, the family, rather than forfeit, decided to go big. Their plan was to raze the structure and replace it with a glimmering Zaha Hadid-designed tower of massive proportions. The scale of the plan stirred the imagination, but the costs were astronomical because they involved repurchasing the property rights they’d sold to keep the original building afloat. That alone would require more than $1 billion. The elaborate renderings of the reconfigured building promised a kind of Time Warner Center on steroids: more than 80 stories with five levels of retail, a hotel and record-breaking expensive luxury condos on top.
For all its inspiring visuals, investors who reviewed the early version of the Kushners’ pitch book noticed a conspicuous omission: numbers. The company circulated a revised pitch, complete with financials, and the scale of the debt and risk involved were jarring. With a $4 billion construction loan and a business model that assumed the condos would sell at the aggressive price of $9,000 per square foot, it was similar to the leap of faith the Kushners had taken by overpaying for the original building a decade earlier, just before the boom went bust. A simple downturn in high-end New York real estate and the colossal new building would be in a hole of titanic proportions.
-snip-
Federal investigators know that Kushner met with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in Trump Tower last December and later met with Sergey Gorkov, head of the Kremlin-controlled VEB bank in two meetings that he didn’t, at first, disclose publicly or on his application for his national-security clearance. After those meetings became public, Kushner and the White House said the contacts were made in his role as a Trump adviser and didn’t involve discussion of his family business. But VEB and a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin described the meetings quite differently, noted Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. They said that Kushner was there in his capacity as head of his family’s real estate business. Investigators say they are studying those accounts with keen interest.
“I think it is part of a pattern of outreach to Russian financial interests, which are essentially Vladimir Putin and his oligarch circle, by Trump family members,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The financial dealings are important because we know that the Russian playbook is to engage and compromise foreign leaders.” He added, “Whether this meeting and contact are significant remains to be understood.” —With assistance from Billy House and Steven T. Dennis.
-snip-
This article, which describes new details of the company’s troubled finances and its overseas fundraising efforts, is based on a review of thousands of pages of financial documents and interviews with more than two dozen executives, business partners, real estate agents, deal participants and analysts. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deals. Some feared legal reprisals or other retaliation from one of the country’s most powerful families.
-snip
The arrest and its coverage made Jared’s entry into the company hierarchy a crucible and strengthened his already fierce attachment to his father. During Charlie Kushner’s 14-month incarceration in an Alabama penitentiary, Jared flew down every Sunday. For years, he carried a wallet his dad had made him in the prison workshop. While his father was behind bars, Jared bought the New York Observer newspaper as a platform to reach the Manhattan elite and began pushing for the company to leave New Jersey behind. He ultimately set his sights on 666 Fifth.
-snip-
As the building’s fate became increasingly bleak, the family, rather than forfeit, decided to go big. Their plan was to raze the structure and replace it with a glimmering Zaha Hadid-designed tower of massive proportions. The scale of the plan stirred the imagination, but the costs were astronomical because they involved repurchasing the property rights they’d sold to keep the original building afloat. That alone would require more than $1 billion. The elaborate renderings of the reconfigured building promised a kind of Time Warner Center on steroids: more than 80 stories with five levels of retail, a hotel and record-breaking expensive luxury condos on top.
For all its inspiring visuals, investors who reviewed the early version of the Kushners’ pitch book noticed a conspicuous omission: numbers. The company circulated a revised pitch, complete with financials, and the scale of the debt and risk involved were jarring. With a $4 billion construction loan and a business model that assumed the condos would sell at the aggressive price of $9,000 per square foot, it was similar to the leap of faith the Kushners had taken by overpaying for the original building a decade earlier, just before the boom went bust. A simple downturn in high-end New York real estate and the colossal new building would be in a hole of titanic proportions.
-snip-
Federal investigators know that Kushner met with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in Trump Tower last December and later met with Sergey Gorkov, head of the Kremlin-controlled VEB bank in two meetings that he didn’t, at first, disclose publicly or on his application for his national-security clearance. After those meetings became public, Kushner and the White House said the contacts were made in his role as a Trump adviser and didn’t involve discussion of his family business. But VEB and a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin described the meetings quite differently, noted Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. They said that Kushner was there in his capacity as head of his family’s real estate business. Investigators say they are studying those accounts with keen interest.
“I think it is part of a pattern of outreach to Russian financial interests, which are essentially Vladimir Putin and his oligarch circle, by Trump family members,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The financial dealings are important because we know that the Russian playbook is to engage and compromise foreign leaders.” He added, “Whether this meeting and contact are significant remains to be understood.” —With assistance from Billy House and Steven T. Dennis.
35 replies
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as has been pointed out before: if HRC had put Chelsea in charge of anything, the RWNJ's heads would explode.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
Oh, and jarhead is supposed to "remake" the Federal Government, as well. Can't leave that one out.
At least their incompetence and hubris is slowing down a little the trainwreck of what this guy would attempt to "fix".
iwanna really did marry her daddy--another broke-behind-the-scenes supposed "billionaire."
And Trumpy won't say one bad thing about Russia or Putin. Ever.
I wonder what could be going on? 
And Mueller is hooking up with the NY AG.
