Donald Trump Falls Another 16 Spots On The Forbes 400 List – Forbes

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By Dan Alexander and Chase Peterson-Withorn

After months of scouring property records, inspecting financial disclosures and interviewing 62 of the presidents colleagues, partners and industry observers, Forbes estimates that Donald Trump is still worth $3.1 billion. Its the second straight year the presidents fortune has remained flat on our annual ranking of Americas 400 wealthiest people, even as many of Trumps billionaire peers have gotten richer.

He is now the 275th-richest person in America, by our count. Thats 16 spots lower than where he ranked a year ago and 119 places lower than where we had him before he became president.

Not that Trumps fortune is static. His branding businesses, for instance, are in steep decline. Real estate developers are no longer signing up to put the Trump name on their properties, and existing customers have scraped the brand from projects in places like Toronto and Panama. Forbes estimates that Trumps real estate licensing business, which is further limited by his pledge not to do foreign deals while in office, is worth about $80 million today, down from $170 million a year ago. Meanwhile, the value of the presidents product licensing operationwhich earns money by putting the Trump name on goods such as shirts, ties and mattressesis approaching zero. In 2016, before Trump became president, it was worth an estimated $14 million.

Luckily for Trump, not everything he owns has his name on it. The value of his 30% stake in two nondescript office towers managed by billionaire Steven Roths publicly traded Vornado Realty Trust continues to soar. His share of those properties, 1290 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan and 555 California Street in San Francisco, are worth a combined $928 millionup $77 million from a year agothanks to timely renovations and strong markets for office space. The two buildings, which Trump did not want in the first place, remain his two most valuable holdings.

Trumps Washington, D.C., hotel also continues to be a bright spot in his portfolio. Popular with Trump fans and those apparently looking to curry favor with his administration, the hotel had a slight 1% uptick in revenue last year, despite a sluggish local hotel market. That helped push the value of the presidents 77.5% stake in the property up by an estimated $11 million.

Things appear to be leveling off in Miami, where the Trump National Doral golf resort had been bleeding business, particularly from the customers traveling down from the liberal-leaning northeast. Revenues fell an estimated 26% from 2015 to 2017 but rose by 1.5% last year, helping lift the value of the resort by nearly $20 million. Forbes also nudged up the value of the presidents Mar-a-Lago club by $10 million, after a pair of nearby properties sold for record prices.

In addition, the president added an estimated $10 million to his cash pile last year, the result of his sons un-Trumpian strategy of conservatively managing their fathers fortune while hes in office. Eric and Don Jr. have sold more than $100 million of Trumps real estate portfolio since his inauguration, through more than 100 tiny transactions that have mostly flown under the radar. Last year, they sold real estate in Manhattan, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and the Dominican Republicbrushing away potential ethics concerns as they paid down debt.

At $3.1 billion, Trump is the richest person running for president in 2020. His only billionaire challenger, hedge fund tycoon Tom Steyer, did not make the $2.1 billion cutoff for The Forbes 400 list. Steyers estimated $1.6 billion fortune makes him eight times wealthier than fellow candidate John Delaney but barely half as rich as Donald Trump.

See the full breakdown of the presidents fortune here.

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Donald Trump Falls Another 16 Spots On The Forbes 400 List - Forbes