Page 14 - Bloomberg Businessweek-October 29, 2018

Bloomberg Businessweek October 29, 2018
He got Trump right, For Fourth of July weekend 2015, Patrice de Colmont, the

owner of Le Club 55 near St. Tropez, decorated his restau-
rant with U.S. and French flags. Among the wealthy Americans
there nibbling crudités and sipping Domaines Ott was finan-
cier Tom Barrack, who’d brought employees from his invest-
ment firm, Colony Capital. Fellow titans stopped by his table to
then things went say hello, including Blackstone Group LP co-founder Stephen
Schwarzman, former Citigroup Inc. Chairman Sandy Weill, and
hedge fund manager Dan Loeb.
Barrack had invited his deputies to the French Riviera to
lay the groundwork for the Los Angeles-based firm’s new-
est fund. Building on a history of dealmaking that included
Fairmont Hotels; the Miramax film studio, co-founded by
Harvey Weinstein; and Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch,
wrong Barrack aimed to raise $2.5 billion to buy distressed European
real estate assets and generate returns greater than 15 per-
cent, a confidential investor pitch obtained by Bloomberg
Businessweek shows. The conversations that weekend bub-
bled with optimism.
A few weeks earlier, Donald Trump, one of Barrack’s oldest
friends, had announced he was running for president. The two
real estate investors met in the mid-1980s, and Barrack enter-
tained the crowd with war stories of deals they’d done together.
While the campaign was the butt of many jokes at Le Club
55, according to two people who were there, Barrack startled
guests with a different take. He said he thought Trump’s brash, 57
Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital authentic style would take him to the White House—and that
he’d make a better president than candidate. Even employees
is struggling. His royal allies who’d spent decades helping their boss place counter intuitive
bets called the prediction crazy.
in the Middle East are boxed out. For Barrack, the tanned, bald, charismatic son of a
Lebanese-American grocer from California, Trump’s can-
And his old friend Paul Manafort didacy became an obsession. In the months that followed,
he would devote himself to Trump’s campaign, all but dis-
is behind bars appearing from the company he’d founded in 1991 and built
into one of the world’s highest- profile real estate investment
firms. While Barrack’s fundraising and TV appearances have
By Caleb Melby been well- documented, he also assisted in ways that haven’t

been reported. According to people familiar with the matter,
he allowed Colony’s New York office, kitty-corner from Trump
Tower, to be used for sensitive transition-team meetings. As a
favor to Paul Manafort, a longtime friend he’d helped install
as head of Trump’s campaign, he hired a woman whose duties
included scheduling his campaign appearances. And he sug-
gested that an investor familiar with Colony donate to a super
PAC led by an ally of Manafort’s.
Helping a fading reality-TV star with no political expe-
rience capture the White House might have led to a role
in the administration or made Colony a magnet for money
from around the world. But mixing business and politics
hasn’t worked out for Colony’s 71-year-old executive chair-
man. Instead, he damaged relations with the Qatari royal
family, his best business partner in the Middle East, by help-
ing orchestrate a relationship between the White House and
the Saudis. Meanwhile, Colony hemorrhaged talent, raised