(Trends Wide) — The Trump Organization reached an agreement with the investment fund CGI Merchant Group to buy the lease of the Trump International Hotel in Washington for $ 375 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Miami group is expected to remove Trump’s name from the ornate building just steps from the White House. It is partnering with Hilton Worldwide Holdings to market it as Waldorf Astoria, according to the source. The agreement is subject to approval by the General Services Administration (GSA). It will do a 60-day review, because the federal government owns the property.
News of the deal was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
CGI Merchant Group declined to comment with Trends Wide. Trends Wide has reached out to the Trump Organization for comment.
Former President Donald Trump’s company had been in advanced talks with CGI Merchant Group this fall to sell the hotel lease, Trends Wide previously reported.
History of the sale of the Trump Hotel
Last month, the House Oversight Committee released documents showing that the Washington property, which attracted conservative lobbyists during Trump’s presidency, lost $ 70 million while in office. (The former president had publicly claimed that the hotel was making more than tens of millions of dollars.) The company has been trying to sell the property since 2019, but stopped last year when the pandemic nearly shut down the hotel industry.
The GSA, which manages the federal buildings and land, leased the Old Post Office building in 2012. Trump opened the hotel in 2016, when he was the Republican candidate for president.
Since then, the commission has been investigating conflicts of interest related to GSA’s handling of the Trump hotel lease.
When he took office, Trump resigned from his companies, but transferred his assets to a trust managed by his children. This allowed him to continue to benefit financially from the Washington hotel and his other businesses.
In 2019, the GSA inspector general said the agency “ignored the Constitution” by deciding to keep the building’s lease to the hotel after Trump was elected to the White House.
Documents released by the Oversight Committee showed the hotel received millions from foreign governments in loan payments and deferrals, which Trump did not disclose, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest during his presidency.
The disclosure marked the first time that congressional investigators reviewed and released details of the former president’s financial information, though the Trump Organization had challenged the committee’s understanding of accounting and denied any wrongdoing.