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Around 3,000 sticks of dynamite ended an era on Wednesday.

At nine o'clock in Atlantic City, on the coast of the US state of New Jersey, Trump Plaza - a casino that once belonged to Donald Trump - was blown up.

It went bankrupt twelve years ago and then rotted away on the beach promenade.

Trump Plaza was the ex-real estate mogul's last building in the city that was once considered a gambling stronghold, the Las Vegas of the East.

Some Americans now regard the controlled implosion as a symbol: Just as the skyscraper passed in a cloud of dust, Trump's entire corporate empire could soon fall apart.

Trump rules with his sons Eric and Donald Jr.

through a global network of almost 500 companies.

Hotels, golf courses, restaurants, ice rinks, furniture, watches, perfumes, chocolate - these are just a few of the branches of your Trump Organization.

The name Trump once stood for luxury, power and money; the family's real estate was a meeting place for global high society.

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But those times are over.

Now, after Trump's years in the White House, the conglomerate appears to be on the verge of collapse.

One reason for this: Trump denied Joe Biden's election victory and incited his supporters until they stormed the Capitol in Washington on the afternoon of January 6th.

"In his last days in office he set fire to several things," says the prominent American advertising expert Sally Hogshead, "with which he permanently damaged his own brand." Many companies no longer want to be associated with Trump.

Law firms, banks, real estate companies, sports associations, they all terminate contracts.

"There's a shame factor now," Hogshead says.

For example, the PGA Championship, one of the most important golf tournaments in the world, will be held in Oklahoma next year - and not on Trump's course in New Jersey, as planned for a long time.

A cooperation with the ex-president, announced the organizer after the storm on the Capitol, “would damage our economic growth”.

Trump really wanted the tournament, it would have been the ultimate ennobling of his golf brand.

The first partners separated as early as 2017

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New York bans Trump's name from two ice rinks and a carousel in Central Park.

The expected loss to his family: $ 18 million annually.

Several tenants want to move out of Trump's office tower on Wall Street.

And the investor Steven Roth is apparently planning to end the collaboration on two commercial properties.

It would be a catastrophe for Trump - the two skyscrapers, located in Midtown Manhattan and Downtown San Francisco, bring in $ 20 million in profits annually, making them the most lucrative properties in the entire corporate kingdom.

Other partners split up earlier.

In 2018, the owner of the Trump International Hotel in Panama City removed the Republican's name, justification: a sharp drop in bookings.

Plants in Toronto and Rio de Janeiro followed later.

The department store chain Nordstrom removed the women's fashion from Trump's daughter Ivanka from its range in 2017.

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The five letters once seemed to make every product a hit - but suddenly the Trump brand is considered toxic.

And that of all things during the Corona crisis, which caused sales to collapse anyway.

The "Trump National Doral", an elegant hotel in Miami, earned $ 44 million last year, as documents from the US authorities show that WELT is available.

In 2019 it was $ 77 million.

Turnberry Golf Club revenues in Scotland fell from $ 25 million to $ 10 million.

Those at the Washington hotel on the same street as the White House fell from $ 40.5 million to $ 15 million.

There are also bright spots.

Especially where a lot of Republicans live.

Trump's North Carolina golf club raised $ 1 million last year than it did in 2019.

The luxury Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, now Trump's residence, grew by three million dollars.

But that hardly helps the ex-president.

Overall, the Trump Organization's sales fell significantly: from $ 445 to 278 million.

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Investigation against Trump

Trump, who boasts of himself as a dealmaker, urgently needs to close new deals.

Especially since he is said to have $ 421 million in debt, of which more than $ 300 million will be due in the next four years.

High debt, a destroyed brand, and a deadly virus that is bringing the economy to a standstill - so this is the position entrepreneur Trump finds himself in after his time in Washington.

But he may face something worse than bankruptcy.

His biggest problem is likely to be Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan attorney.

Vance once indicted former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was accused of rape by a New York housekeeper.

Now he is investigating the Trump Organization.

Vance is investigating suspicions that Trump exaggerated the value of his property to banks to get credit - and downplayed it to tax authorities to save taxes.

It is the only known criminal investigation against Trump.

She could put the ex-president in jail.

For the past three years, Vance has been sifting through the books of Trump's subsidiaries.

But this week he expanded his investigation to include the seat of the conglomerate: the 58-story Trump Tower in New York.

Vance suspects a seedy mortgage deal there.

So the crisis has reached the center of the Trump empire.

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