Trump's ex-Puerto Rico partner hits a bumpy road, even before Maria
WASHINGTON - Donald Trump no longer has a stake in a bankrupt luxury golf course in Puerto Rico, but his business partner on that project, under normal circumstances, would stand to gain handsomely in the rebuilding of the hurricane-ravaged commonwealth.
But like many things in the orbit of Trump's business deals, normal circumstances don't apply.
Trump's former golf-course partner Empresas Diaz is the parent company of one of Puerto Rico's most prominent roadbuilders and is owned by one of the best-connected families in the territory. But creditors, owed at the time almost $100 million, forced Betteroads Asphalt LLC and Betterecycling Corp. into filing involuntary bankruptcy protection on June 9.
Those creditors, which include Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Firstbank Puerto Rico, Banco Santander de Puerto Rico and others, allege that Betteroads was moving its assets to other connected entities and transferring several of its plants to third parties to make it harder for the creditors to recover what they were owed.
Another of Betteroads creditors is Sargeant Maritime Inc., a Florida-based maritime transporter of asphalt that was sold last year to a Dutch energy firm after a nasty family court battle that pitted brother against brother.
Empresas Diaz joined forces with the Trump Organization in 2008, paying royalties for the use of Donald Trump's name, offering him a percentage of the profits _as high as $600,000 in 2012 according to an annual report - and hosting a Trump management company on the premises.
The golf course near the El Yunque National Forest outside the capital of San Juan still went belly up. The Coco Beach Golf & Country Club, as the Trump course was known in legal paperwork, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2015 as Trump ran for president.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trumps-ex-puerto-rico-partner-hits-a-bumpy-road-even-before-maria/ar-AAsEy8Q?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
