(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s company is in negotiations to repurchase the lease on a hotel in Washington D.C. it used to own, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Trump Organization had sold the lease on the hotel, which is blocks away from the White House in the historic Old Post Office Building, for $375 million in 2022. The hotel was leased to the Trumps in 2013 by the federal government, which owns the building.
Eric Trump, executive vice president at the company and Trump’s son, discussed purchasing the lease with merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners – which controls the long-term lease on the hotel, the report said.
Talks are still in the preliminary stages and may not lead to a sale of the property’s lease, the report added. The hotel currently operates under a brand owned by Hilton Worldwide.
During Trump’s first term, Democrats had criticized the lease as a conflict of interest, after which his son, Donald Trump Jr, took the reins at the hotel.
The Trump Organization, Hilton and BDT & MSD Partners did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Utkarsh Shetti in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)
