Trump Drops $114M In Cash To Pay Off Mortgage At 40 Wall St.
The Trump Organization has reportedly paid off the mortgage on 40 Wall St., a 72-story landmark office tower in New York. President Donald Trump’s firm now owns the tower free and clear of debt.
Trump’s real estate business paid the roughly $114M balance in cash to wipe out a CMBS loan for the tower that was set to mature in less than two weeks, a Trump Organization spokesperson told Reuters, which first reported the news.
Occupancy at the 1.1M SF tower has slipped in recent years, which led the loan covering the property to be watchlisted in February 2023. The loan was sent to special servicing nine months later as occupancy fell, although The Trump Organization never missed a payment on the debt.
Ladder Capital Finance originated a $160M loan on the building in 2015, and a decade of payments had shaved roughly $46M off the loan’s balance, according to a Morningstar Credit note.
The loan had a 3.67% interest rate, according to Morningstar’s database, well below the cost of capital with today’s elevated interest rates. That would have presented a refinancing problem for the property, which was roughly a quarter vacant at the end of 2024, down from 90% occupied when the debt was issued.
Trimont Real Estate Advisors, which acted as special servicer on the loan, approached The Trump Organization in April for an update on its plans for the debt, according to servicer commentary in the Morningstar Credit database.
The property only brought in enough revenue to cover roughly 70% of debt costs in 2024, but it was approaching breakeven financials in the first quarter, Bloomberg reported. Trump paid just $1.3M for the tower during the real estate crash of the 1990s.
A recent appraisal for the property isn’t included in the debt service notes, but it was valued at $540M in 2015 when the loan was underwritten.
The tower is widely cited as the most valuable piece of the Trump commercial real estate portfolio, and its valuation played a key role in Trump’s civil fraud conviction in New York. The state attorney general’s office argued successfully in court that The Trump Organization had inflated the property's value by nearly $200M to secure a better deal on loan terms.
New York Attorney General Letitia James won a $454M judgment against Trump, and a judge ruled in February 2024 that authorities could seize Trump’s properties to satisfy the payment. Trump appealed the ruling.
But Trump’s win in the 2024 presidential race effectively halted any effort by James to collect. Weeks after winning the race for the White House, an attorney for Trump asked James to voluntarily dismiss the case, arguing that it would interfere with the president’s duties.
James declined the offer, and Trump’s appeal of the original decision has stalled in court. The attorney general has made no secret that she thinks the seizure of 40 Wall would help fulfill the judgment against Trump.
“We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers, and yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day,” James told ABC last February.
