Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, often known by fans as “Mr. Wonderful,” slammed leftist judge Arthur Engoron’s politically-motivated decision to fine Donald Trump $355 million over Trump’s actions that resulted in zero victims whatsoever.
Speaking to CNN, O’Leary explained:
Let’s leave out the politics and just talk about what happens to real estate development anywhere. If you’re a developer in America and you have a building on any block, and it’s worth let’s say $500 million and you want to build a building next beside it, you go to the bank and say “this building is worth $500 million. I’d like to borrow a $500 million loan against this asset and I want you to tell me it’s worth $500 million too.” And so the bank negotiates with you and says “well no we think it’s worth $400 million” - and so you fight it out. You always try to show your assets in the brightest light. You want them to be worth the very most, because you’re only to get a 40-50% loan to value. So you borrow that money and you build a new building. So that’s what this case is all about. And forget about Trump, every single real estate developer on Earth this does…. And that’s just the way it is. And in this case what I’m trying to figure out; who lost money? The bank got paid back on their loans…. If you need to sue Trump over this, you need to sue every real estate developer everywhere. This is all they do. They do this all day long, every day. So I think there’s no way this survives appeal… this doesn’t make any sense.
Watch below:
As I wrote back in September; Judge Arthur Engoron [then recently] ruled that Trump has misrepresented the value of Mar-a-Lago to lenders as being between $426.5 million and $612.1 million, claiming that it was only worth between $18 million and $27.6 million. As a result of this dubious ruling, Judge Engoron ruled that some of Trump’s business licenses in New York be rescinded.
Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago in 1985 when it had a listing price of $20 million - and that $20 million is in 1986 dollars. Even if the price of Mar-a-Lago only increased with inflation, it would be worth roughly $58 million today. In other words, Judge Engoron’s ruling implies that Mar-a-Lago lost 65% of its value over the same time period where real estate prices increased nearly fivefold.
Though she too has no idea what she’s talking about, even corrupt New York AG Letitia James, who campaigned on prosecuting Trump, claimed Mar-a-Lago was worth at least $75 million when she alleged that Trump overvalued it.
Past estimates of Mar-a-Lago’s value have ranged, but even the lowest were at least fifteen times higher than what Judge Engoron claimed. Forbes magazine pegged its value at $350 million in 2022, which they described as a “conservative” estimate, while more aggressive estimates went as high as $725 million.
Above all else, valuation does have a subjective component, and ultimately an asset is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. It’s not as if the lenders that Trump was claiming Mar-a-Lago was worth up to $739 million didn't have the ability to contest that, or perform their own analysis, which they likely did. Financial firms tend to do their due diligence when lending out millions of dollars (with some notable exceptions throughout history, of course).
While we can be grateful that the likes of Judge Engoron aren’t in the real estate business - it’s more unfortunate that he’s in the legal business.
Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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