“ Maia Lomadze, public relations manager of the Silk Road Group, told RFE/RL on June 25 that the Trump Organization will jointly work with the Silk Road Group to invest in business projects in Tbilisi and the Georgian port city of Batumi. Lomadze added that Trump Organization Vice President Michael Cohen will visit Georgia on June 29. [...] Trump reportedly discussed the possibility of investing in Georgia in April during a meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in New York City, where the Trump Organization is headquartered. [...] The Georgian President's Office said Ivana Trump is also planning to invest in Georgia, namely, to set up a multifunctional entertainment center in Batumi. ( Radio Free Europe, June 26, 2010) ”Michael Cohen sent to Georgia
“ Entrepreneur and real estate mogul Donald Trump is considering real estate investments including casinos and golf courses in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He has sent Michael Cohen, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, to the country to sound out possibilities after being impressed by the country's president Mikheil Saakashvili on a recent trip to New York. [...] Cohen visited 13 potential development sites and said he was impressed by the Black Sea coastal town of Batumi. It is largely an unknown destination outside central Europe but is a popular destination for tourists from Central Asia due to a temperate climate and proximity to the Turkish border. (Realty Plus, July 16, 2010) Georgian President announces Trump development deal
“ US property tycoon Donald Trump has agreed to build one of his iconic Trump Tower developments in the tiny former Soviet republic of Georgia, the Georgian presidency said Wednesday. Trump signed an agreement with Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili in New York to build the tower, the presidential administration said in a statement. It provided no financial details of the agreement and said a decision had not yet been made on where the building would be located. [...] Saakashvili was in New York for the UN General Assembly session and for meetings with potential investors as he seeks to revive Georgia's struggling economy. Georgia's once-booming economy has suffered from investor flight due to the global economic crisis and its five-day war with Russia in August 2008, contracting by 3.9 percent in 2009. The Georgian government is seeking to revive interest from investors after foreign direct investment plummeted last year by 51 percent, in particular by touting its Black Sea coast as a holiday destination. (Agence France Presse, September 22, 2010) Final Deal Announced in New York
“ For Georgia's president, it was a chance to show that his country, the former Soviet republic, is grand enough to attract the world's best-known real estate developer. And for that developer, Donald J. Trump, it was yet another opportunity to demonstrate that he is world class. In a ceremony with caviar and wine at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Thursday, Mr. Trump signed a deal to develop the two tallest towers in the republic of Georgia, the former Soviet state at the nexus of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Giving his blessing to the deal was Mikheil Saakashvili, the flamboyant, English-speaking president of Georgia. Mr. Saakashvili is eager to attract foreign investment as he tries to yank his impoverished country from the Russian orbit and align it more closely with the United States. Mr. Trump, the world's first virtual developer, will not actually build the towers. At this point in his career, he is more inclined to license use of the Trump name on someone else's building than develop a property himself. [...] Any actual construction, if it begins as scheduled in 2013, would be overseen by Giorgi Ramishvili, chairman of the Silk Road Group, one of the largest private investment companies in the south Caucasus region. The deal, which the partners estimate at $300 million, calls for two projects. The Trump Tower Tbilisi would go up on Rose Revolution Square in Georgia's capital. The Trump Riviera would be part of a planned Silk Road complex that includes a casino, an exhibition hall and a marina, in the resort city of Batumi on the Black Sea, near Turkey. The residential buildings will each contain 100 apartments and rise nearly 40 stories -- average by New York standards, but nearly twice the size of the republic's tallest structures. [...] In Georgia, Mr. Trump will license his name, and his company will manage the two properties. He will also work with Silk Road to line up financing for the projects and market the towers. Mr. Trump said that so far he had no plans to put his own cash into the deal. [...] Mr. Saakashvili has been eager to draw celebrity foreign investors to show Georgia is again open for business, after the global recession and a war with Russia in 2008 dried up the foreign direct investment that had been propelling the economy. [...] Before the Russian war, Georgia had attracted about $2 billion a year in foreign investment. Mr. Saakashvili welcomed the inflow as an endorsement of his pro-Western reforms. During the crisis, Georgia pivoted to work with Middle Eastern investors like the sovereign wealth fund of Ras al-Khaimah, one of the United Arab Emirates. That fund bought the Georgian port of Poti on the coast just north of the site of Mr. Trump's planned tower in Batumi. [...] While Mr. Trump is the first large American developer to come to Georgia, some locals have worked with American partners or financing from United States banks, Irakli Matkava, a deputy minister of economy, said in a telephone interview. Silk Road, which recently opened the Radisson Tbilisi hotel in the capital, expects to open another hotel, the Batumi Radisson this summer. Tourism is a relative new field for Silk Road, which is a major fuel trader and transporter, and also the largest Internet provider in Georgia. The company also has a contract to move American military equipment to Afghanistan from Iraq.
The Georgians seem to have had their eye on the Trump clan for some time. Two years ago, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, an assistant to the chairman of Silk Road, invited Mr. Trump's Czech-born ex-wife, Ivana Trump, to Georgia to consider investing there. (New York Times, March 11, 2011) Trump Uses Ceremony to Criticize Obama
“ Donald Trump can set aside any lingering doubts about his chances of becoming president -- at least if it's the presidency of ex-Soviet Georgia he wants. In the midst of flirting with a 2012 White House run, the developer and brash reality TV star won an unexpected vote of confidence Thursday during a New York meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. "If he decides to run for president in Georgia, he might win," Saakashvili joked in answer to a reporter's question to Trump about his will he/won't he US presidential plans. Trump, sitting next to Saakashvili in Manhattan's Trump Tower, was more coy, saying that he is seriously considering a bid to unseat President Barack Obama, but that there will be no decision before June. "I'm seriously considering it because of what's happened to our country that I love," he told reporters. Trump even touted his meeting with Saakashvili, where the developer signed an investment deal for Georgia's Black Sea resort of Batumi, as proof of his made-for-the-presidency foreign policy credentials. "Of course. I am dealing with one of the great leaders of the world," Trump said, looking over at Saakashvili. (Agence France Presse, March 10, 2011) ”Local Media Falsely Reports Trump Will Invest $250 Million
“ US businessman Donald Trump "plans to invest 250 million dollars in Georgia" and will "certainly" visit Georgia in the near future, the privately owned Rustavi-2 channel reported on 11 March. [...] While all three main national TV channel's presented the move as Trump investing money in Georgia, reports in international media suggest that Trump's will be managing the project and that the starting capital of 250m dollars is being put up by Georgian company Silk Road Group, which owns several businesses in Georgia, including the country's largest internet service provider Silknet, the Wissol chain of petrol stations and the Radisson hotel in Tbilisi. It is also involved in the transportation of oil and petroleum products to and from Central Asia. (BBC Monitoring Trans Caucusus Unit, March 11, 2011) ”Georgian government portrayed deal as a PR coup
“ The square may soon be getting another landmark building, after larger-than-life US property tycoon Donald Trump signed an agreement this month to help develop one of his signature towers there, plus another in the coastal resort of Batumi. The deal was a PR boost for the ex-Soviet state which is struggling to lure back foreign investors following its war with Russia in 2008 and the global financial crisis. But statistics published the day after the agreement suggested that Georgia needs more help than the flamboyantly-coiffured US magnate has to offer. [...] The Georgian economy was propped up by $4.5 billion (3.23 billion euros) of US and EU aid and loans after the 2008 conflict, which maintained stability during the global crisis and enabled a post-war return to growth. Inflation, poverty and unemployment remain critical problems, however. "Georgia is located in a troubled region," said independent economic analyst Demur Giorkhelidze. "Investors need a predictable government with a well-considered economic policy which makes calculated political steps." Local critics were quick to note that although Trump signed a deal to allow the proposed luxury towers to be branded with his name and help raise financing for construction, he didn't actually commit any of his own funds to the estimated $250 million (180 million euro) project. But despite this, the government is optimistic that the US tycoon's celebrity allure could act as an advertisement. "When someone like Trump decides that Georgia is the right place to put his brand name, a lot of other companies will feel comfortable following in his footsteps," said economy minister Kobalia. (Agence France Presse, March 20, 2011) ”Trump had earlier ties to Saakashvili
“ The other day, the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, came to town to see an old friend: Donald Trump. [...] Saakashvili, who is six feet three, with close-set eyes and floppy black hair, explained that he had been a Trump fan since the mid-nineties. After getting a master's in law from Columbia, he worked at a New York firm that was a Trump tenant. "I met him in an elevator," the President recalled. "He asked me whether we liked the building. I said to him, 'You better fix the showers on our floor,' and it was done within, like, twelve hours."The Trump touch left an impression. "I always stay in New York in Trump hotels," Saakashvili said; this time it was the International Hotel and Tower, at Columbus Circle. (New Yorker, April 18, 2011) ”Batumi
Tblisi
India
Indonesia
Israel
Tel Aviv - Elite Chocolate Factory
Mexico
Baja - Trump Ocean Resorts
Netherlands
Philippines
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
South Korea
Switzerland
St. Moritz - Condominium Development
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Taiwan
Turkey
Uruguay
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