Tom Barrack Juggles Trump Defense and Revamped Property Empire
July 19, 2017 | by Heather Perlberg | Bloomberg Politics
Billionaire Tom Barrack has a lot in common with his longtime friend Donald Trump. He’s a real estate mogul who’s had massive successes and high-profile busts. He projects a wealthy image and rewards loyalists. And in January, he embarked on a new act that has been slow to gain momentum.
Barrack’s property empire has consolidated into Colony NorthStar Inc., a real estate investment trust born near the start of the year from a merger of three companies: his own Colony Capital Inc., NorthStar Asset Management Group Inc. and NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. The new entity is making bets on health-care properties and warehouses, deals that are decidedly less flashy than Barrack’s more famous transactions, such as investing in Nevada casinos and Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.
So far, Colony NorthStar has struggled to appeal to investors. Shares are little changed since the merger’s completion, trailing some rival firms in a year where optimism over the Trump administration’s agenda is helping to fuel a stock rally.
