Donald J.’s top hotel manager. Trump is leaving the company as its five-star hotel brand comes to the forefront of other efforts to make money for the former president.
CEO Eric Danziger cites family reasons for leaving. He joined Trump Hotels in 2015 with plans to expand the business, but instead watched a significant portion of the hotel portfolio shrink as Mr Trump’s polarizing policies tarnished the brand, legal and ethical scrutiny scared off potential partners and the pandemic sent the hospitality industry into the queue.
Since 2017, the name Trump has emerged from hotels in New York, Toronto, Panama, Vancouver and soon Washington, as once lucrative deals were canceled or sold. Trump’s hotels, which have been a defining feature of the former president’s global real estate business for decades, have shrunk to seven. Any immediate hope of restoring the hotel’s brand after Mr Trump left office is likely thwarted by the aftermath of the Capitol attack on January 6, as many companies split with Trump.
Mr Danziger, 67, announced his departure on Wednesday in an email to colleagues in the hotel industry, where he has been a prominent figure for decades. He said he would become CEO of Braintree Group, a company in Boise, Idaho that has several lines of business, including hospitality. The email states that he owns a home in Boyce and has a son who works for Braintree.
In an internal email to the Trump Organization, received by The New York Times, Mr. Danziger thanked the Trump family for always being “incredibly supportive,” adding: “I will always value my time here.”
Mr Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Danziger’s term coincided with a period of deep turmoil in business, including a series of investigations by Congress and law enforcement that hampered expansion plans.
His departure is part of a wider shift in the company’s management. Mr Trump’s longtime chief financial officer, Alan H. Weisselberg, lost his title last year after being charged, along with Trump’s own organization, with tax fraud. Mr. Weisselberg remains in the company in a smaller role.
These moves put what was already a close-knit company, even more so in the hands of the Trump family. After becoming president, Mr Trump largely handed over the company to his son Eric, who already ran its generally successful golf division.
After leaving office, Mr Trump used his political popularity in some circles to pursue entirely new business ventures, from a social media platform to a multi-million dollar advance on a $ 75 coffee table book. These revenue lines are separate from the Trump Organization’s core real estate business, which includes hotels, 16 golf clubs and various commercial properties, which have been among its biggest profits.
Before Mr. Trump entered politics, he ran the company without a CEO to run the hotel group.
In 2015, the Trump family hired Mr. Danziger for a job that looked like the pinnacle of a nearly 50-year career that had seen Mr. Danziger rise from a hotel employee to a senior executive at Starwood, Carlson and Wyndham. . But by the time the family announced Mr Danziger’s appointment in August of that year, Mr Trump’s presidential campaign had begun and there were already signs that his separation policy would affect business.
However, Mr Danziger’s team began to lay the groundwork for growth. They explored deals in China and the Middle East, while planning to launch two new hotel brands in the United States – Scion and American Idea – in order to take advantage of Mr. Trump’s popularity in the red states and cities outside major cities.
The two new local brands gained more prominence after Mr Trump was elected president and refused to give up his business, but passed a self-imposed ban on new deals in foreign countries.
Mr Danziger, in an interview with The New York Times in March 2017, spoke strongly about the new hotel lines, saying the company had signed 30 letters of intent with potential developers. “As far as the presidency has had any effect on us, there may be protests in one or two hotels or whatever,” he said. “We run a business. We manage brands; we are adding brands. ”
This summer, the Trump family hosted a reception in New York at the Trump Tower atrium to introduce new hotel partners from the Mississippi Delta. But no other deals materialized, and two years later Trump ended the partnership and abandoned the new brands, blaming the political climate.
The political toxicity of the Trump name in some of its key markets has also forced the company to withdraw.
Partners at Trump-branded hotels in New York and Toronto paid the family to leave and removed their name from the buildings. A spectacle broke out at a hotel in Panama when a new owner fired Trump’s employees and forced the letters TRUMP to be removed with a hammer and lever. The company that owns the hotel in Vancouver, which opened in 2017, eventually went bankrupt.
The Trump organization has a deal to sell its tent in Washington soon, which became a center for lobbyists and loyalists to Trump during his presidency. A deal worth at least $ 375 million is expected to bring profit to the family.
The company’s other hotels are in Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas and New York, and the company operates luxury golf resorts in Florida, Scotland and Ireland.
As business stalled during the presidency, the Trump family began running a hotel in New Jersey owned by the family of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser to his administration. The two families also discussed development partnerships in Long Branch, New Jersey. Mr Danziger described it at the time as a “direct business deal”, but it soon fell apart due to ethical issues.
After Mr Trump left the White House, Mr Danziger was free to resume the expansion of the hotel brand. But the January 6 attack on the Capitol created new setbacks. A series of criminal and civil investigations have also left the company in the dark.
At Braintree, Mr Danziger will oversee a wider range of businesses, including medium-sized hotels, residential properties and charter schools. Jason Cotter, co-founder of Braintree, said Mr. Danziger “will bring depth and breadth to the performing arts.”