There are plenty of golfers that like to tell a tale at the 19th hole. That two footer to win that five dollars off their buddy grows to a slippery, downhiller of greater length with each retelling. But few golfers have a pair of brass ones like Donald Trump.
Trump is at it again and it seems to be non-stop BS from the king of hyperbole.
While The Donald continues to put his rather large foot into his even larger mouth we get another glimpse of how he likes to exaggerate about all things Trump.
With his entry into the race for president (really?) we get a look at his financial disclosure and included in that is a valuation of his golf properties. And as usual, Trump says his courses are worth hundreds of millions and just by having the trump name adds millions to their value. Unfortunately, some experts disagree.
Trump values his 16 golf related businesses anywhere from $550 million to $675 million. While Trump likes to say he has a personal net worth of $10 billion, the paperwork states it’s about $1.15 billion. Just a slight exaggeration.
The experts who appraise golf courses use a formula of 1 to 1.5 times annual revenue to value a golf course. It seems that Trump’s accountants have used a much higher multiple of two to four times revenue to place a significantly higher price on Trumps tracts.
Excluding the Miami resort and Los Angeles from the number because they had other revenue streams the combined revenue of the remaining course is about $160 million. So using the standard formula for valuating golf courses Trump’s empire hits a number somewhere between $160 million to $250 million. That’s a heck of a lot less than $675 million.
Buddie Johnson, an industry expert in course valuation said this of Trump’s numbers, “Stacking it up against the universe of other golf course sales he is kind of off the charts. Anyone can say anything … such is his verbosity that when he talks about the valuation of his golf clubs he talks louder than anyone else, and he thinks that makes it true.”
Trump likes to think that the millions he puts into rehabbing a course adds to its values but that is actually not the case. It’s all about the revenue generated and even the Trump name doesn’t add the value that The Donald likes to think it does.
An example of Trump’s over estimation can be seen in their valuation of Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland. He puts the value of that course at $50 million even though it only had revenues of $4.3 million.
Larry Hirsch of the Society of Golf Appraisers says Trump is mistaken. “I’ve valued 3,000 courses in 45 states, Canada and beyond and I can only remember one that was worth $50 million. It had four courses at an extraordinarily well known facility.” Sounds like Bandon Dunes to me and Trump’s Aberdeen has only one course.
So it appears that Trump is doing what he does best…fashioning his own truth.
The sooner he gets booted from this race the better and maybe then we’ll hear a little less from Trump.
Yea, like that will ever happen.
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