Donald Trump’s social media company could go public as soon as next week, paving the way for a potentially huge windfall for a former president who raked in tens of millions of dollars the last time one of his companies went public bag.
That previous experience from decades ago, however, did not end well for the company or its investors. While a 2016 Washington Post analysis found that Trump made more than $44 million, the company – Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts – lost more than $1 billion and ended up bankrupt.
This time there is at least one similarity between the two initiatives separated by decades. The new company that will merge and go public, Trump Media, will trade on the Nasdaq under the letters DJT, Trump’s initials. Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts used the same stock title when it went public with great fanfare in 1995.
“It will be made public and we are very, very happy about it,” Trump told reporters nearly 30 years ago. “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
The Atlantic City, New Jersey, company lost money every year, but its stock prices were doing well, for a time. In the initial public offering, the company raised $140 million, selling 10 million shares at $14 each.
In 1996, the stock hit a high of $35 a share before plummeting that same year, in part because the company bought another casino for $100 million more than its estimated value of $400 million, the New York Times in 2016.
The company, meanwhile, continued to lose money. The year the stock peaked, it lost $66 million. In 1999 it lost $134 million. And in 2004 — when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange — it lost $191 million, according to a CNBC analysis.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump, who was president and then CEO of the company, continued to earn millions of dollars a year in salaries and bonuses despite heavy losses.
The company helped pay for some aspects of his famously luxurious lifestyle, including spending more than $6 million entertaining guests on his plane and golf courses, according to the Washington Post report. He also used company cash to purchase Trump-branded products, including $1.2 million worth of Trump Ice bottled water, the report said.
Trump’s new venture centers on his social media platform, Truth Social. Shareholders of a company called Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted Friday to approve a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group, the private company that owns Truth Social.
With the company’s merger, Trump would have nearly 80 million shares, worth about $3 billion. DWAC shares closed nearly 14% lower from their opening price on Friday.
The impending IPO comes as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is experiencing a public liquidity crisis. He posted a $91 million bond earlier this month to stay writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation award against him while he appeals.
Trump also attempted to get bail for a similar break on New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $464 million civil fraud settlement against him, his companies and co-defendants. His lawyers told the appeals court that he does not have enough money on hand to secure such bail.
If you don’t pay your bail by Monday and if the appeals court does not intervene, James will be allowed to proceed with the seizure of his assets. Meanwhile, in a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said: “Thanks to hard work, talent and luck, I currently have nearly five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial sum of which I intended to use in my presidential campaign.” . indicating that he has the means to obtain a bond.
It is unclear when exactly Trump will be able to profit from the next listing of his social media company. Under the terms of the agreement, Trump is prohibited from selling shares of the merged company for at least six months. But the board of directors, which will likely include his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., could vote to allow the former president to sell the shares before that.
—CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.