NEW YORK CITY-Although showing no signs that retirement is on the horizon, real estate developer Donald Trump says the business succession plan has all his three children running his various holdings once he retires.
Although there has been some speculation that daughter Ivanka could be in line to head the company, Trump insists, "My kids are treated very equally. I think, and I hope, for their own sake, that they'll be able to get along…It's not a deal where there's going to be one person succeeding me."
If the succession plan remains handing over the reins to the three children, it will break with most real estate family tradition that has seen the mantle of power going to just one child, according to the Wall Street Journal. "In real estate it's usually one person," says William Zabel, a founding partner of the law firm Schulte Roth & Zabel, who has represented numerous real-estate families. "You have to give one of them the mantle and hope that it works."
Donald Trump Jr. says that he and his two other siblings will get along when the time comes for their father to retire. "A family business is incredible when it works, and it's a disaster when it doesn't," says Donald Jr. "Our biggest obstacle will be to prevent any of that sort of infighting…While (Donald Sr.) is here, there's no democracy. But with the three of us, there will be." See story in the Wall Street Journal.
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