Page 59 - How To Get Rich

Most important, know the party on the other side of the table before
sitting down with them. Research who you’re dealing with, how they
negotiate, and what they want from you.
Now you’re ready to deal. The following stories illustrate these basic

rules.
The Trump Building at 40 Wall Street.

Consider What the Other Side Wants
One of the best deals I ever made was the acquisition of the tallest
building in lower Manhattan, a 1.3-million-square-foot landmark known
as 40 Wall Street.

I got it for $1 million, and the negotiation was all about timing and
intuition.
In the 1960s and 1970s, 40 Wall Street was truly a hot property—a
fully occupied building. Then in the 1980s, it was bought by Ferdinand
Marcos, who was busy dealing with a revolution in the Philippines. The
skyscraper at 40 Wall Street fell into decline, proving once again that a

business should never be run by a dictator, especially a real one about to
be booted from power.
Then the Resnicks, a prominent real estate family, descended on 40
Wall Street, but after a long period of negotiation, it became clear that the
Resnicks and Citibank weren’t going to make a deal and that 40 Wall
Street would be back on the block. I wanted very much at this time to
make my move, but this was in the early 1990s and I was in no position to

do so. The real estate market was terrible, and my own financial straits
were woeful.
The next buyer was the Kinson Company, a group from Hong Kong.
They made a great deal, and after the purchase was complete, I requested a
meeting with them to discuss a possible partnership. They weren’t

interested in a partnership, but they did want to make 40 Wall Street the
downtown equivalent of Trump Tower, including a public atrium. It
sounded like a beautiful idea. However, what they would do with the steel
columns that supported a seventy-two-story building never seemed to
enter their minds. I was dumbfounded.
As you can probably guess, the Kinson group proved to be relatively
clueless about renovating, running, and leasing out a New York City
skyscraper. They weren’t in the real estate business to begin with—they