Donald Trump’s social media company can go public soon next week, paving the way for a potentially huge windfall for one former president one of his companies made tens of millions of dollars the last time it went public.
That decades-old practice didn’t end well for the company or its investors. While in 2016 The Washington Post The review found Trump made more than $44 million, while Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts lost more than $1 billion and went bankrupt.
This time, there is at least one similarity between the two entities separated by decades. The newly combined and publicly traded company, Trump Media, will be listed on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker symbol DJT, Trump’s initials. Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts used the same stock code when they went public in 1995 with much fanfare.
“It’s going public and we’re very excited about it. It’s going to be a great day,” Trump told reporters nearly 30 years ago.
The Atlantic City, NJ, company it lost money every year, but its stock prices did well—for a while. In the initial public offering, the company raised $140 million by selling 10 million shares at $14 each.
By 1996, the stock had reached $35, before falling sharply later that year, in part because the company bought another casino for $100 million more than the estimated $400 million. The Whatw York Times reported in 2016.
Meanwhile, the company continued to pour in cash. The stock lost $66 million the year it peaked. In 1999, it lost 134 million dollars. 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 one report. CNBC overview.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump, who became the company’s chairman and later CEO, continued to earn millions of dollars a year in salary and bonuses despite heavy losses.
The business helped pay for aspects of his famously lavish lifestyle, including spending more than $6 million on entertaining guests on his jet and golf courses. Washington Post report. He also used company money to buy Trump-branded merchandise, including $1.2 million worth of Trump Ice bottled water, the report said.
Trump’s new initiative is centered on his social media platform, Truth Social. The shareholders of a company called Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted Friday to approve the merger with Trump Media and Technology GroupThe private firm that owns Truth Social.
Under the combined company, Trump will own about 80 million shares worth $3 billion. DWAC shares closed Friday down about 14% higher than the opening price.
The expected IPO comes at a time when the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is facing a very public cash crunch. Earlier this month, he a $91 million bond stay writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation award against him while he appeals.
Trump was also trying to secure a bond for a similar break from New York Attorney General Letitia James. $464 million civil fraud award against him, his companies and the defendants. His lawyers told the appeals court that he did not have enough money to secure such a bond.
Unless he posts bond by Monday and unless the appeals court intervenes, James will allow the garnishment of his assets. Meanwhile, a Truth Social “Thanks to a lot of hard work, talent and luck, I now have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a significant amount of which I intended to use in my bid for the presidency,” Trump said in a post on Friday. get a bond.
It’s unclear exactly when Trump might cash in on the upcoming listing for the social media company. Under the terms of the deal, Trump is barred from selling shares of the combined company for at least six months. But the board of directors, which will include his eldest son Donald Trump Jr., could vote to allow the former president to sell shares sooner than that.