2016-05-01washingtonpost.com

For Trump, who has taken pride in punching back hard at his attackers, his rapport with Icahn shows a side of the brash real estate tycoon that Americans rarely see: a willingness to show deference to someone who once insulted his business and who has, by many measures, been more successful.

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"Carl is a master strategist and easily one of the brightest people I've ever had the pleasure of working for," said Edward Weisfelner, head of the corporate restructuring practice at the law firm Brown Rudnick, who represented bondholders and Icahn in two of the casino bankruptcies. "I couldn't say the same about Donald."

Trump, in the interview, said he never lost leverage in the Atlantic City deal. Because so many bankers and bondholders were owed so much -- and because many agreed that an open Trump casino would make more money than a shuttered one -- Trump said people such as Icahn needed him to agree to a deal just as much as he needed them.

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The episode with the Taj and Trump's other loans left a mark on his grandeur. To shrink his massive bank debts, Trump agreed to relinquish his plane and other luxuries, and bankers forced Trump to limit his personal and household spending to $450,000 a month.

Icahn transformed the casino's downfall into handsome gains. In 1993, according to the Wall Street Journal, he sold his Taj bonds for $150 million -- more than double what he had paid for them three years earlier.

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By 2009, debt continued to plague Trump Entertainment Resorts, which controlled the Taj and two other casinos.

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As the company entered bankruptcy restructuring yet again, investors offered competing plans. Trump sided with a hedge fund that pledged to give him a 10 percent stake if he let the company continue to use his name.

Icahn, who had sold off his Taj shares years earlier, saw a new opportunity to profit off the Trump company's struggles -- this time on the opposite side of Trump. Icahn backed a Texas billionaire who was mobilizing a full takeover and whose lawyers argued that the Trump name had been tarnished by repeated bankruptcies.

In 2010, Trump took the stand in a Camden, N.J., courtroom and swatted back, saying, "Mr. Icahn has led companies into many, many bankruptcies" and reasserting that he still had one of America's most valuable brands. "I wouldn't switch my assets for his assets any day of the week," Trump said.

Icahn was unconvinced. "I like Donald personally, but frankly I'm a little curious about the big deal about the name," he told the Wall Street Journal. "If the name is so powerful, then how come they went bankrupt three times?"

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In 2014, the casino group slid again into bankruptcy, sparking more maneuvers that dragged on until this past February, when Icahn gained full control.

The takeover took place as Trump began cruising to victories in Republican primaries. And Icahn, it seemed, had changed his view on the Trump brand -- signing an agreement that said he could still use the mogul's name.

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The best solution for this financial mess, Icahn said, would be to bring in "a guy like Donald Trump . . . [who's] not beholden to an establishment." "I disagree with him on certain issues and certainly would talk to him more," Icahn added. "But this is what this country needs. Somebody to wake it up."



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