Filipino real estate mogul Jose Antonio has a net worth of $400 million. He founded Century Properties in 1986 with just six people. The company develops high-end real estate and has gone through several tough times that dampened the business. These include the 1989 coup attempt, the power crisis in the early ’90s and the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Currently, it has high-end condo projects across Manila and workforce of over 3,000. It also has licensing deals with Forbes Media, Donald Trump, Giorgio Armani and Paris Hilton.
All his four sons have executive roles in the company. In 2017, Robbie joined him in the list of richest Filipinos after his Revolution Prefabricated, a maker of factory-built luxury homes, secured an investment and was valued at $256 million from VC firm 500 Startups.
Antonio built signature residential building, the Centurion, in Manhattan, designed by I.M. Pei and son. He founded and chairs the Philippine-China Business Council and served as the Philippines’ special envoy to China. He was named by President Rodrigo Duterte as special envoy of trade to the U.S. in November 2016.
Jose Antonio is a big fan of magnate Warren Buffet while he also shows admiration to techies Mark Zuckerberg for his game-changing Facebook, and Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk, founders of the online marketplace and homestay network Airbnb.
The release of the Forbes Philippines’ 50 Richest list always makes the headlines, even if there are few surprises. This year, for example, SM mogul Henry Sy tops the list for the tenth time in a row, followed—again—by John Gokongwei and Enrique Razon.
It’s a different story when you look at the younger billionaires on the list. This is where you find new names and a few interesting stories. With more or less self-made fortunes, the under-45 tycoons here have earned their places on the list through lots of hard work, some smarts, luck—and sometimes a little bit of cunning.
IMAGE Rennell Salumbre
EDGAR SIA, 40 (Double Dragon Properties), ranked #21 with US$840M
At 40, Injap Sia is both the youngest on the Forbes list and also the highest-ranking among the under-45 set. More importantly, his fortune is entirely self-made: the young entrepreneur was only 26 when he opened the first Mang Inasal store, which he sold to Jollibee Foods Corp. for a total of Php5 Billion. Though he no longer qualifies as a dollar billionaire as of this year (he was listed at #17 with US$1.2B in 2016), it’s still a big improvement from the #34 spot he held in 2015. The surge was attributed to the rapid growth and expansion of Double Dragon Properties, a real estate development company that he owns alongside partners like Jollibee founder Tony Tan Caktiong.
IMAGE Edric Chen
ROBBIE ANTONIO, 40 (Century Properties), ranked #28 with US$400M (together with his father, Jose Antonio)
After landing on the cover of our July 2017 issue, Robbie Antonio joins his father, Jose Antonio, on the Forbes list, coming in at #28. It’s the family-owned Century Properties that earns them their position on the list, but Robbie’s own startup, Revolution Precrafted Ltd., gets special mention. The maker of prefabricated luxury homes is currently valued at US$256M, after launching in 2015.
IMAGE Forbes
MICHAEL COSIQUIEN, 43, and EDGAR SAAVEDRA, 42 (Megawide Construction), ranked #29 with US$385M and #31 with US$375M, respectively
Michael Cosiquien and Edgar Saavedra were only in their early 20s, just out of college, when the pair founded their own company in 1997. It was tantamount to “on-the-job training for us,” Cosiquien told Inside Business with Coco Alcuaz in 2014. Both civil engineers, it took courage to have put up Megawide Construction then, since the economy was in the depths of the Asian financial crisis. It wasn’t until around 2007 that the company began to really take off, after having bagged major projects from SMDC. Today, Megawide has expanded from their core business, and now has interests in the Mactan Cebu International Airport and even in power generation—the company owns three solar power projects that together supply about 100 megawatts to the national power grid.
IMAGE Congressman Mikee Romero Facebook
MICHAEL ROMERO, 44 (GlobalPort 900), ranked #47 with US$135M
One of the most colorful characters on the list, Michael Romero has certainly had his ups and downs over the past year. Romero was elected to Congress as the 1-Pacman Party List representative in May 2016; months later, a court ordered his arrest over charges of embezzlement from the family-owned company Harbour Centre Port Terminal, Inc. Even before that, Forbes reports that Romero’s holding company, GlobalPort 900, “was delisted from the Philippine Stock Exchange and trading suspended in May 2014 in what he described then as a temporary software mix-up.” Romero is currently in hiding, with his whereabouts unknown since the warrant for his arrest was issued in January 2017.
Three bedroom pre-crafted home by Tom Dixon PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTED
Robbie Antonio, founder and CEO of Revolution Precrafted, speaks the language of art and design. As a real estate mogul, he has spearheaded projects all over the country in collaboration with design greats like Philippe Starck, Versace, Missoni and Armani, just to name a few.
His home, which also happens to be the first to be build by Priztker prized architect Koolhaas in the Philippines, served as a take off point for the founding of his passion project Revolution Precrafted. Like any other work of art, his residence is referred to as Stealth. The dark structure resembling boxes stacked one over the other houses an impressive collection of commissioned artworks ranging from Damien Hirst to Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami. Curiosity about his home inspired him to come up with a new proposition to building homes–one that would disrupt the industry. “I thought, what if I did this for a lot of people? Why not channel this curiosity for people to obtain but in a more expeditious way?”
Interiors of a Tom Dixon designed pre crafted home PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTED
The idea was ambitious to say the least: collaborate with the world’s greatest architects, designers and style icons to design homes. Getting these design icons on-board was just the tip of the iceberg. Finding the technology to make this possible and affordable to a larger market was another story. It was at this juncture that that concept of producing prefabrication homes came into play. “The technology was a means to an end,” the art enthusiast said.
A one bedroom pavilion by Kravitz Design PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDA modular glass house by Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie Architects PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTED
It was in 2015 when Revolution Precrafted was launched and the company has since then enlisted the world’s top design names and collectives to create prefabricated homes. One of the challenges, Robbie admits, is finding middle ground where function and aesthetic meet. It is one thing to create a home that is beautiful and another to produce and sell one that is practical, functional and reasonably priced. “Fabrication of mockups is the longest and hardest. There are technicalities and a lot of adjustments.” One model can take up to six months to create to make consideration and compromises for a comfortably, liveable home.
Eden by Marcel Wanders PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDAn artistic render of a pre crafted home by Ronald Ventura PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDExteriors of a home designed by Daphne Guinness PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDInteriors of a Daphne Guinness designed home PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDA fashionphile’s dream bedroom turned into reality by Daphne Guinness PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDDaphne Guinness breathes her own brand of style into the design of her homes for Revolution… [+] PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTED
The homes and pavilions now included in the collection of Revolution Prefabricated is a clear indication of how Robbie has turned vision into reality. He offers insight on this new approach to building homes. “It’s also creating desire. When someone desires something so much, there is no price limit. You will go for it. What is art? It is a piece of canvas that one is willing to pay a fortune for. It’s the same concept. I want to create a desire so palatable that you need to have it.”
A pre-crafted home by award winning architect Ed Calma PHOTOS COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDMinimalist design by Ed Calma for the living space PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDA fully functional kitchen for an Ed Calma designed home PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTEDSweet dreams inside in the private chambers designed by Ed Calma PHOTO COURTESY OF REVOLUTION PRECRAFTED
This story is part of Forbes’ reporting on the Philippines’ 50 Richest 2017. See full coverage here.
Filipino tycoons with interests in construction and property development saw their net worths increase this year. (Photo credit: NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images)
The cofounders of the $342 million (2016 sales) infrastructure company Megawide saw their fortunes rise by more than 45%, buoyed by a 30% uptick in the stock. This makes Cosiquien and Saavedra the 29th and 31st richest people in the Philippines, respectively.
Megawide Construction cofounders FORBES
The 20-year-old company, which is handling construction of schools, the Mactan Cebu International Airport and the country’s first intermodal transportation hub, reported a rise in construction and airport revenues over the past year.
Megawide is the largest private airport operator in the Philippines. In 2014, it won a 25-year contract for Mactan Cebu in partnership with Indian infrastructure giant GMR. It’s building a second terminal there and readying a bid for its first overseas project, in western India.
The company also operates three solar power projects, supplying 100 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.
Robbie and Jose Antonio COURTESY OF THE ANTONIO FAMILY
Robbie joins his father on the ranking this year at No. 28 thanks to his Revolution Prefabricated, a maker of factory-built luxury homes in Asia and the West that cost an average of $70,000 and $120,000, respectively.
In its first funding round in March the company raised $15.4 million from Silicon Valley VC firm 500 Startups and other angel investors, putting Revo’s valuation north of $250 million. To cater to the regional Southeast Asian market, Robbie says he’s working on affordable homes that would run $25,000 to $30,000 per unit.
The family’s flagship Century Properties, founded by Jose 30 years ago, is a developer of high-end real estate and has licensing deals with Forbes Media, Donald Trump, Giorgio Armani and Paris Hilton. It saw $130 million in revenue last year.
Last November, President Duterte named Jose as special envoy of trade to the U.S.
The newcomer: Eusebio Tanco
STI Education founder Eusebio Tanco INQUIRER
Shares in Eusebio Tanco’s key asset, STI Education Systems, soared 136% over the past year thanks to an expanding demand for courses in fields such as information and communication technology, and business and management. He lands on our list of the Philippines’ 50 Richest for the first time at No. 45.
The company, now with 77 schools spanning the Philippines, is breaking ground on a 10-acre property for a new campus in Davao, which is slated to open during the summer of 2018. Holding company Tanco Group also has interests in shipping, property, energy and financial services.
The debut listee studied economics at Ateneo de Manila University and got a master’s degree at London School of Economics. He started as a stockbroker.
The night before Donald J. Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States, his recently opened Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., serves as the capital’s de facto inner sanctum. Barricades ring the place; if you don’t have a room or a reservation, good luck getting in.
As with any club worth its gilt, secret, concentric rings of exclusivity sit in plain sight, and one starts near the lobby bar, which is lined with bottles of Dom Pérignon and draped with a giant American flag. There, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, Trump’s billionaire Indonesian business partner, sits on a plush sofa, texting with Trump’s billionaire Dubai partner, Hussain Sajwani. Eventually they meet, and Tanoesoedibjo later posts an Instagram picture of himself, Sajwani and their wives mugging for the camera in the lobby of the Trump International Hotel.
Upstairs, Phil Ruffin, Trump’s billionaire partner in Las Vegas, has taken up residence in $18,000-a-night accommodations. The presidential suite, Ruffin says, was reserved for the president-elect. When he later complained about the price to Trump, the president demurred. Ruffin might need that money: His wife, Oleksandra, a former Miss Ukraine, has hit it off with Sajwani’s wife over their mutual love of expensive jewelry.
All told, at least 14 from this community of partners, from Turkey to India to the Philippines, attended the inauguration festivities.
“People often talk about partners as not necessarily friends, almost as if they’re mutually exclusive. ‘If you’re a partner, you’re not a friend, and if you’re a friend, you’re not a partner,’ ” says Eric Trump, the president’s son and co-chief of the Trump Organization, who now sits, with brother Don Jr., at the nexus of this global network. “I think that’s a bad way of thinking.”
All these friends, old and new, mixed with an awesome amount of power and money, do not produce a good recipe for eight hours’ sleep. Joo Kim Tiah, a Malaysian heir who would shortly unveil the world’s newest Trump tower, in Vancouver, eventually complains: “Do you guys know what time it is?” “I’m sorry, Mr. Tiah, we can’t turn the music down,” the hotel staffer responds. “This is once in a lifetime.” Indeed it is. Never has an American president taken office with such immense and complicated assets. Nor has one brought along a busload of rich partners who, by dint of previous deals and brand association, stand to reap profits in real time, as the president serves.
To better understand this global network, Forbes looked into each of these 36 partners, traveling to five countries to interview more than a dozen of them. In the process we made the following discoveries:
A potential business partner in Russia says he exchanged messages with the Trump family as recently as January.
Ruffin and the Trump Organization are considering a Trump casino in Las Vegas, perhaps bolstered by a federally backed high-speed rail connection to Los Angeles—a matter that Ruffin says he’s discussed with the president himself.
Trump’s partner in Indonesia, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, intends to use the Trump playbook to become president of the world’s fourth-most-populous country within ten years.
Trump’s attitude toward Muslims spurred, in part, a family feud among his partners in Turkey.
But perhaps the most interesting tidbit comes in the aggregate. Trump’s network extends to at least 19 countries. And these guys (yes, they’re all men) share a set of consistent traits, even as property developers go. This group is uniformly rich— seven are members of the Forbes Billionaires list; many more claim centimillionaire status. They reflect their partner—a mélange of bombastic marketing, over-the-top style and political connections.
And all of them are trying to figure out, to various degrees, how to cash in on the 45th president.
ERIC TRUMP MOTIONS to a small TV in the corner of his office in Trump Tower. “If I turn on the TV—let’s just see—I will bet you that [my father] will be on the screen in some way, shape or form.” He picks up the remote and clicks the power button. An anchor, fresh off a commercial break, stares straight into the camera: “A hearing in federal court today could allow hundreds of people who were deported under President Trump’s original—”
Eric smiles as he turns off the set. “I see him up there all day, every day. And I realize how big of a magnitude the decisions he makes and the things he has on his plate.”
His father’s presence in the business extends beyond his office television. In January, Trump stood in Trump Tower and announced that he was handing over control of his business to his sons as part of an effort to separate it from his presi- dency—though by putting his assets in a trust, he’s really just parking his holdings rather than divesting from them. And because he knows exactly what assets are in the trust, it’s anything but blind.
A month later, Eric seems to acknowledge this dilemma. One minute, he promises to never talk about the business with his father while he serves in the White House. Less than two minutes later, he says he will update his father on the company’s financials “probably quarterly.”
He also claims that the business is following through on its plan to hand over profits at its hotels from foreign dignitaries to the U.S. Treasury, even though the Trump business partner in Las Vegas says there is no such thing happening at their hotel. The pledge was intended to resolve concerns that the president would violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, a barely litigated section of America’s founding document that prohibits federal officials from receiving “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” A group of legal scholars and bipartisan ethics experts have begun the lengthy process of suing Trump. “He has all of the conflicts of interest that he had before,” says Richard Painter, the former chief ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, who is one of the lawyers facing off against him in the suit.
Some of Trump’s foreign partners are already finding themselves politically popular in their home countries. The Philippines’ strongman president, Rodrigo Duterte, appointed Trump partner Jose Antonio to serve as a special envoy to the United States just before Trump’s November victory. In India, billionaire Mangal Lodha is developing a 75-story Trump building while serving as a regional vice president of a major political party. Indonesia’s Tanoesoedibjo is building up a following as he mulls a presidential run.
“We have incredible relationships with the people we do projects with,” Eric Trump says. “You want somebody who trusts you. You want to be able to trust them.”
FOR ALL THE CLUMSINESS around how detached the president is from his business, from a management perspective, little has changed for the foreign partners. Although 85% of Donald Trump’s $3.5 billion fortune is wrapped up in stable buildings and golf courses in the United States, the most dynamic part of his business are its foreign licensing and management deals, which garner an estimated 3% to 5% of revenues without adding any risk. And Eric and Donald Jr. have for years served as deal scouts, logging hundreds of thousands of miles to find and close foreign partnerships. “He gives his sons a lot of autonomy to make the company’s decisions,” says Paulo Figueiredo Filho, who partnered with the Trumps in Brazil. “They were already conducting 90% of the business, even before the presidency.”
The Trump fils took an informal approach to vetting potential partners, relying, like their dad, as much on gut as numbers and analyses. “We’re a little bit of an insular company in that the vast majority of this stuff, we just do ourselves,” Eric says. “The first criterion that we look at if we’re going to do something with somebody else is ‘Are they a good person?’… That’s the way it has to work. If you’re looking at documents, if you’re looking at contracts, something is deeply wrong.”
The brand attracts a certain type of partner—flashy and ambitious. In the Philippines, Jose and Robbie Antonio also designed a beachclub with Paris Hilton. Dubai’s Hussain Sajwani has forged a $3.7 billion fortune selling real estate and tossing in extravagant add-ons, including BMWs and Lamborghinis. In Russia, Emin Agalarov works alongside his billionaire father, Aras, on real estate projects, while also moonlighting as a pop star (Trump once made a cameo in one of his music videos).
These are not the types of businessmen to ignore the fact that they are now tied to the most famous, controversial person in the world. Trump’s own organization has shown how to exploit the moment. During the week-end of the inauguration, guests swarmed the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C., paying upwards of $70,000 for a four-night stay. At Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, initiation fees reportedly jumped from $100,000 to $200,000 in January. The property is now worth an estimated $175 million, roughly 15% more than it was six months ago, as its historical significance increases seemingly by the week.
“From a business standpoint, is the presidency beneficial?” Eric Trump says. “You have to look at it both ways. If you’re talking about existing assets, they’re doing amazing. If you’re talking about as a whole, we’ve made sacrifices in order to al- low him—and he’s made sacrifices in order to allow him—to take the biggest office in the world.”
Ditto for his partners. The crew swanning around the inauguration was clearly thrilled, both with the proximity to power and with the opportunities that might afford. Agalarov says he would probably be working on a Trump Tower in Russia if the U.S. real estate mogul hadn’t launched his campaign. A different partner in the nation of Georgia says the Trump Organization asked to cancel its deal in order to comply with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. (It is unclear why the Trump Organization might think its Georgia deal would have caused constitutional issues but not Trump’s other active foreign partnerships. A Trump Organization lawyer wouldn’t comment.) And just before he entered the White House, Trump said Hussain Sajwani offered him $2 billion for a new deal that the president turned down.
In Istanbul, though, the Dogan family tried to terminate their agreement with Trump. In Toronto, partners reportedly tried to remove the Trump name from one of their buildings.
Most partners continue to pledge their support—in private if not publicly. “Today the Trump brand is stronger all over the world,” Agalarov says. Any hard feelings about the canceled tower? “As soon as Mr. Trump got elected, we sent congratulations letters, to which they replied, and we exchanged texts,” Agalarov adds. “He does not forget his friends.”
Trump business partner Robbie Antonio Image: Jason Quibilan for Forbes
Robbie Antonio winds his way through full-scale models of the apartments that he and his father, Jose, are selling in a new residential tower in Manila. The units, which start at $160,000, are accented by cool greys and blues, and like many other Antonio projects, they’re a co-branded affair, featuring minimalistic, Armani-designed interiors.
The Armani partnership is evocative of the Antonio business model. In the 31 years since Jose founded the $230 million-in-annual-sales Century Properties, the Philippine economy has blossomed, and they have responded to the growing demand for increasingly plush apartments and offices with the first condominiums in the Philippines, an ultraluxe Manila tower called Gramercy Residences and a man-made beach with a beach club designed by Paris Hilton. They often work in partnership with Western brands like Armani, Missoni and Versace—and, full disclosure, with Forbes Media. The Antonios broke ground last year on a Forbes-branded Manila office building. A few blocks away from Forbes Tower is a Trump-branded, Antonio-built residential tower. The $150 million, 57-storey tower is nearly ready to open. “Trump has been a very positive experience,” says Robbie. And most of that experience has revolved around the friendship he has forged with the Trump children Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr.
The Antonio-Trump relationship has morphed in the last couple of months. Back on October 13, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte named Jose as the Philippines’ special envoy for business and trade to the US. An Antonio spokesman says Jose’s role is a “non-governmental, non-policymaking” position. He says, Jose’s “priority is the enhancement of the Philippines’ and US’s business relations.” And who could better strengthen business relations between the Philippines and a Trump America than a Trump business partner?
(This story appears in the 28 April, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
A previously little-known batch of billionaires And tycoons from Around the world suddenly find themselves in An unprecedented position: how do you cash in on A partnership with the president of the United States of America? from the Avaricious dealmakers to the Abandoned deals, meet the world’s 36 mini-trumps
Image: Clockwise From Top Left: Philip Cheung For Forbes; Jamel Toppin For Forbes; Jason Quibilan For Forbes; Vikas Khot; Tim Pannell For Forbes; Jamel Toppin For Forbes; Donald Trump: Jamel Toppin For Forbes
The night before Donald J Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States, his recently opened Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, serves as the capital’s de facto inner sanctum. Barricades ring the place; if you don’t have a room or a reservation, good luck getting in.
As with any club worth its gilt, secret, concentric rings of exclusivity sit in plain sight, and one starts near the lobby bar, which is lined with bottles of Dom Pérignon and draped with a giant American flag. There, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, Trump’s billionaire Indonesian business partner, sits on a plush sofa, texting with Trump’s billionaire Dubai partner, Hussain Sajwani. Eventually, they meet, and Tanoesoedibjo later posts an Instagram picture of himself, Sajwani and their wives mugging for the camera in the lobby of the Trump International Hotel.
Upstairs, Phil Ruffin, Trump’s billionaire partner in Las Vegas, has taken up residence in $18,000-a-night accommodations. The presidential suite, Ruffin says, was reserved for the president-elect. When he later complained about the price to Trump, the president demurred. Ruffin might need that money: His wife, Oleksandra, a former Miss Ukraine, has hit it off with Sajwani’s wife over their mutual love of expensive jewellery.
All told, at least 14 from this community of partners, from Turkey to India to the Philippines, attended the inauguration festivities. “People often talk about partners as not necessarily friends, almost as if they’re mutually exclusive. ‘If you’re a partner, you’re not a friend, and if you’re a friend, you’re not a partner,’ ” says Eric Trump, the president’s son and co-chief of the Trump Organization, who now sits, with brother Don Jr, at the nexus of this global network. “I think that’s a bad way of thinking.”
All these friends, old and new, mixed with an awesome amount of power and money, do not produce a good recipe for eight hours’ sleep. Joo Kim Tiah, a Malaysian heir who would shortly unveil the world’s newest Trump tower, in Vancouver, eventually complains: “Do you guys know what time it is?”
“I’m sorry, Mr Tiah, we can’t turn the music down,” the hotel staffer responds. “This is once in a lifetime.”
Indeed it is. Never has an American president taken office with such immense and complicated assets. Nor has one brought along a busload of rich partners who, by dint of previous deals and brand association, stand to reap profits in real time, as the president serves.
Image: Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver: Jeff Vinnick / Getty Images; Trump Towers Istanbul: Shutterstock.Com; Azerbaijan Trump International Hotel And Tower Baku: Shutterstock.Com; Uruguay Trump Punta Del Este: Miguel Rojo / AFP / Getty Images
To better understand this global network, Forbes looked into each of these 36 partners, travelling to five countries to interview more than a dozen of them. In the process, we made the following discoveries: • A potential business partner in Russia says he exchanged messages with the Trump family as recently as January. • Ruffin and the Trump Organization are considering a Trump casino in Las Vegas, perhaps bolstered by a federally backed high-speed rail connection to Los Angeles—a matter that Ruffin says he’s discussed with the president himself. • Trump’s partner in Indonesia, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, intends to use the Trump playbook to become president of the world’s fourth-most-populous country within 10 years—and has recently been accused of playing a role in an alleged plot to frame a top Indonesian government official for murder. • Trump’s attitude towards Muslims spurred, in part, a family feud among his partners in Turkey.
But perhaps the most interesting tidbit comes in the aggregate. Trump’s network extends to at least 19 countries. And these guys (yes, they’re all men) share a set of consistent traits, even as property developers go. This group is uniformly rich—seven are members of the Forbes billionaires list; many more claim centimillionaire status. They reflect their partner—a mélange of bombastic marketing, over-the-top style and political connections.And all of them are trying to figure out, to various degrees, how to cash in on the 45th president.
Eric Trump motions to a small TV in the corner of his office in Trump Tower. “If I turn on the TV—let’s just see—I will bet you that [my father] will be on the screen in some way, shape or form.” He picks up the remote and clicks the power button. An anchor, fresh off a commercial break, stares straight into the camera: “A hearing in federal court today could allow hundreds of people who were deported under President Trump’s original—”Eric smiles as he turns off the set. “I see him up there all day, every day. And I realise how big of a magnitude the decisions he makes and the things he has on his plate.”
His father’s presence in the business extends beyond his office television. In January, Trump stood in Trump Tower and announced that he was handing over control of his business to his sons as part of an effort to separate it from his presidency—though by putting his assets in a trust, he’s really just parking his holdings rather than divesting from them. And because he knows exactly what assets are in the trust, it’s anything but blind.
Trump’s network extends to at least 19 countries. and these guys (yes, they’re all men) share a set of traits
A month later, Eric seems to acknowledge this dilemma. One minute, he promises to never talk about the business with his father while he serves in the White House. Less than two minutes later, he says he will update his father on the company’s finan-cials “probably quarterly”.
He also claims that the business is following through on its plan to hand over profits at its hotels from foreign dignitaries to the US Treasury, even though the Trump business partner in Las Vegas says there is no such thing happening at their hotel. The pledge was intended to resolve concerns that the president would violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, a barely litigated section of America’s founding document that prohibits federal officials from receiving “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state”. A group of legal scholars and bipartisan ethics experts have begun the lengthy process of suing Trump. “He has all of the conflicts of interest that he had before,” says Richard Painter, the former chief ethics lawyer for George W Bush, who is one of the lawyers facing off against him in the suit.
Some of Trump’s foreign partners are already finding themselves politically popular in their home countries. The Philippines’ strongman president, Rodrigo Duterte, appointed Trump partner Jose Antonio to serve as a special envoy to the US just before Trump’s November victory. In India, billionaire Mangal Lodha is developing a 75-storey Trump building while serving as a regional vice president of a major political party. Indonesia’s Tanoesoedibjo is building up a following as he mulls a presidential run.
“We have incredible relationships with the people we do projects with,” Eric Trump says. “You want somebody who trusts you. You want to be able to trust them.”
For all the clumsiness around how detached the president is from his business, from a management perspective, little has changed for the foreign partners. Although 85 percent of Donald Trump’s $3.5 billion fortune is wrapped up in stable buildings and golf courses in the US, the most dynamic part of his business are its foreign licensing and management deals, which garner an estimated 3-5 percent of revenues without adding any risk. And Eric and Donald Jr have for years served as deal scouts, logging hundreds of thousands of miles to find and close foreign partnerships. “He gives his sons a lot of autonomy to make the company’s decisions,” says Paulo Figueiredo Filho, who partnered with the Trumps in Brazil. “They were already conducting 90 percent of the business, even before the presidency.”
The Trump fils took an informal approach to vetting potential partners, relying, like their dad, as much on gut as numbers and analyses. “We’re a little bit of an insular company in that the vast majority of this stuff, we just do ourselves,” Eric says. “The first criterion that we look at if we’re going to do something with somebody else is ‘Are they a good person?’ . . . That’s the way it has to work. If you’re looking at documents, if you’re looking at contracts, something is deeply wrong.”
The brand attracts a certain type of partner—flashy and ambitious. In the Philippines, Jose and Robbie Antonio also designed a beachclub with Paris Hilton. Dubai’s Hussain Sajwani has forged a $3.7 billion fortune selling real estate and tossing in extravagant add-ons, including BMWs and Lamborghinis. In Russia, Emin Agalarov works alongside his billionaire father, Aras, on real estate projects, while also moonlighting as a pop star (Trump once made a cameo in one of his music videos).
These are not the types of businessmen to ignore the fact that they are now tied to the most famous, controversial person in the world. Trump’s own organisation himself has shown how to exploit the moment. During the weekend of the inauguration, guests swarmed the Trump hotel in Washington, DC, paying upwards of $70,000 for a four-night stay. At Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, initiation fees reportedly jumped from $100,000 to $200,000 in January. The property is now worth an estimated $175 million, roughly 15 percent more than it was six months ago, as its historical significance increases seemingly by the week.
“From a business standpoint, is the presidency beneficial?” Eric Trump says. “You have to look at it both ways. If you’re talking about existing assets, they’re doing amazing. If you’re talking about as a whole, we’ve made sacrifices in order to allow him—and he’s made sacrifices in order to allow him—to take the biggest office in the world.”
Ditto for his partners. The crew swanning around the inauguration was clearly thrilled, both with the proximity to power and with the opportunities that might afford. Agalarov says he would probably be working on a Trump Tower in Russia if the US real estate mogul hadn’t launched his campaign. A different partner in the nation of Georgia says the Trump Organization asked to cancel its deal in order to comply with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
(It is unclear why the Trump Organization might think its Georgia deal would have caused constitutional issues but not Trump’s other active foreign partnerships. A Trump Organization lawyer wouldn’t comment.) And just before he entered the White House, Trump said Hussain Sajwani offered him $2 billion for a new deal that the president turned down. In Istanbul, though, the Dogan family tried to terminate their agreement with Trump. In Toronto, partners reportedly tried to remove the Trump name from one of their buildings.
Most partners continue to pledge their support—in private if not publicly. “Today, the Trump brand is stronger all over the world,” Agalarov says. Any hard feelings about the cancelled tower? “As soon as he got elected, we sent congratulations letters, to which they replied, and we exchanged texts,” Agalarov adds. “He does not forget his friends.”
(This story appears in the 28 April, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
Robbie Antonio defines the art of living by living with art. The 39-year-old Filipino real estate developer owns a Rem Koolhaas mansion in Manila decorated with MoMA-worthy works by Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, David LaChapelle and Marina Abramovic, among others.
Art Basel takes place this week in Hong Kong, and Swire Properties and United Talent Agency Fine Arts have partnered up for a week of programming that incorporates public art, architecture, fashion and design. “During Art Basel in Hong Kong 2015, I saw firsthand how Swire Properties is dedicated to bringing art, architecture, and design to the community through its properties and sponsorships,” said Josh Roth, head of UTA Fine Arts. “I was inspired to strike up a conversation with the company’s leadership, seeing a great opportunity for us to harvest Swire Properties’ goodwill within the community and build upon their legacy.” The partnership could be a preview of what’s yet to come for Swire Properties and UTA Fine Arts. Here’s a preview of the week’s happenings:
“Pacific Red” by Larry Bell at Pacific Place in Hong Kong
“Pacific Red” by Larry Bell
While art in shopping malls may be a bizarre thing in the United States and Europe, it’s quite common in Asia, and for the 2016 edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong, and to further Swire Properties’s and UTA’s goal to show art to audiences who would otherwise not be exposed to it, American artist Larry Bell has installed in the mall and the Upper House at Pacific Place. Three red, large-scale reflective glass cubes will stand tall and radiant, manipulating light and air into art. “ Larry finished installing his massive glass cubes just days ago, and we’ve already seen Instagram posts popping up and local children playing amongst the works,” said Roth. “This project embodies the goals of both Swire Properties and UTA Fine Arts: bringing art to a large cross-section of the public, providing access to art in unexpected places.”
Hugh Dutton’s Swire Properties Lounge at Art Basel
Art fair lounges have a tough job of trying impress the VIP collectors who are in search of acquiring works of art worth six figures or more. British architect Hugh Dutton’s effort — located at the Swire Properties Lounge at the Level 1 Concourse opposite the Hall 1C entrance of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre —is inspired by his Climate Ribbon at Swire Properties’ Brickell City Centre in Miami, and features a ribbon floating in a figure eight, emulating the symbol for infinity.
