Trump's Loan Extension on a Manhattan Building Shows His Debt Options

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(Bloomberg) -- A recently refinanced mortgage for a building in Manhattan may show how Donald Trump is able to deal with his upcoming debt maturities, albeit at a higher cost.

Investors Bank agreed to extend the mortgage on Trump Park Avenue, a condo building at the corner of 59th Street, by a year to 2021, according to his latest financial disclosure, released hours after he left office.

The interest rate increased 25 basis points to 3.5%. It’s at least the second time the due date has been pushed out since the $23 million loan was originated in 2010, records show. It’s now estimated to be less than $10 million.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, owns a unit there, and other owners have included former baseball star Alex Rodriguez. When Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner lived in the building, Rupert Murdoch and his then-wife Wendi Deng reportedly were among their neighbors, Deng said in 2010.

It has since lost some of its cachet. Seven of eight units listed for sale last year on StreetEasy failed to sell. Most were then listed for rent. A one-bedroom condo on the ninth floor that was listed for $2.1 million in 2019 could be rented for $3,600 a month as of last week. The Trump Organization developed the building and still owns more than a dozen of the units, which form collateral for the mortgage.

Brian Doran, general counsel at Investors Bank’s parent company, declined to comment.

Doral Resort

The Trump Organization has almost $600 million of estimated debt coming due within the next four years. These include loans tied to Trump Tower in New York and the Doral Golf Resort outside Miami, where revenues dropped to $44 million last year from $77 million a year earlier.

With longtime lender Deutsche Bank AG refusing to work with the former president, and corporations distancing themselves from the family business, that has raised questions over how easily the debt can be refinanced.

Trump’s business would be far from alone in changing loan terms during the pandemic. There’s been a significant increase over the past year in commercial mortgage modifications, particularly in New York City, as Covid-19 wrecked property valuations, halted foreclosures and evictions, and allowed millions of people to temporarily stop paying rent.

More than 10% of all commercial mortgages that have been bundled into securities have requested some kind of relief from creditors during the pandemic, said Manus Clancy, a senior managing director at data provider Trepp LLC. Most of those debtors were hotels and retail businesses, he said. Residential property owners have yet to face similar levels of distress.

Representatives of the Trump Organization didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The mortgage on his Park Avenue building was one of a few loans that came due during Trump’s first term. Three mortgages were paid off in 2017, while the due date on a loan for his Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York, was extended to 2029 from 2019. The rate on that mortgage increased to 4.5% from 4%.