Donald Trump's Atlantic City casinos might not belong to Trump anymore if billionaire banker and high-stakes poker player Andy Beal has anything to say about it. Beal and Trump were once partners doing battle against another group of bondholders to take control of the three bankrupt Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. casinos. But now Beal has split from Trump and his Beal Bank has offered to convert its $486 million mortgage on the casinos into majority owner equity. The offer drew criticism from attorneys representing Trump Entertainment bondholders, who have offered to buy the casinos for $225 million. Previously Trump and Beal Bank had offered $114 million in cash for the company but last week Trump withdrew from that deal and instead agreed to back the bondholders in return for an ownership stake in the casinos.

Beal might love the art of the deal even more than Trump. After all, this is a man who won more money in a single day than any other poker player: $11.7 million at the Las Vegas Bellagio casino in 2004. Because of Beal's mortgage on the Trump casinos his bank is first in line among bankruptcy creditors.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Judith H. Wizmur has given both sides until December 3 to try to negotiate a deal. Wizmur has scheduled hearings to start in January to pick the company's new buyer.

Donald Trump's flagship hotel, the Trump International Hotel & Tower New York is getting a little sprucing up. A $30 million renovation will update the 167 guest rooms and suites beginning in January 2010. The renovation will happen in two stages timed for the slower New York City travel months, one half in January through April, and the other half in June through September. The hotel will remain open. The new decor will have a color palette of gray and aubergine with accents of ivory and caramel. Furnishings will be done in velvets and silky fabrics with rosewood, mahogany, maple and walnut finishes. Schonbek crystal chandeliers, purple velvet draperies and silk accent walls will complete the glamorous look. The renovation will be finished by next Labor Day.

A helpful reader directed us to a rather interesting listing, Donald Trump's personal jet. Trump's flashy Boeing 727-100 has shown up on the Controller website. Lest you have any doubt that it is his, the plane has the Trump T on the tail and a 30-foot Trump logo on the side done in gold leaf. A plane like this usually has 134 seats but this plane was reconfigured to hold just 24 passengers in the lap of luxury.

The 1968 vintage plane was originally operated by American Airlines according to Aviation.com. It has been refurbished with soft beige leather armchairs around a conference table. A separate dining area has seating for five around a wood table and additional seating on an adjacent upholstered sofa. A master bedroom offers a posh place for mid-flight nap.

The listing with AvPro in Maryland says it has new paint and is current with all avionics. It has logged a total of 41,833 hours with 29,664 total landings. Why is Trump selling? Is a new, even more lavish plane in the works, or is Trump, like the rest of us, feeling the pinch of a struggling economy?

UPDATE: CNN Money has a quote from George Sorial from Trump's organization who says that Trump is upgrading to a larger aircraft.

[Thanks, Jay!]

It's a ginger battle royale. Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton has come out in support of the campaign to stop Donald Trump from building his billion-dollar golf resort near Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Swinton lent her star power in favor of the four hold-outs who have refused to surrender their land to Trump's ambition. She compared the government attempt to push the landowners into selling their land to the notorious "Highland Clearances" of the 18th and 19th centuries when many tenants were pushed off their ancestral lands in favor of rich landowners.

As part of a statement quoted in Page Six, Trump claimed to have never heard of the actress and accused her of using the situation in order to get "some easy publicity for herself." It's a pretty silly claim given that the androgynous actress is notoriously reclusive. Trump also did some name dropping of his own saying that Sean Connery is in support of the project.

Michael Forbes will not go quietly. Forbes is just one of the angry homeowners on the fringes of the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the area soon to be the home of Donald Trump's billion-dollar golf resort. Four homeowners are facing the prospect of compulsory purchase orders to buy their houses because their land is to be part of the Trump development. The homeowners plan to challenge the decision by a local committee to grant the Trump Organization permission for the land in Scottish court.

The Scotsman says that says Donald Trump, Junior and George Sorial paid a visit to Michael Forbes' home this week and were chased away. Forbes, who has been fighting against the Trump development for two years, told the Scotsman that he thinks it is a revenge situation now and that Trump wants everyone who was against him out of the area, a scenario that seems plausible since Trump isn't exactly known for having a warm and fuzzy business style.

Donald Trump is eager to once again have control of Atlantic City casinos but the road to ownership might be a bit challenging. The Wall Street Journal says that while Trump has reached an agreement with Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which is in Chapter 11, the deal is fraught with difficulty. Trump's sale must first get the approval from a bankruptcy court judge and he will also have to appease bondholders who the WSJ says hold about $1.25 billion in second-lien debt and could lose that money if Trump's deal goes through. Trump and the firm's top lender, Beal Bank, agreed to invest $100 million in the company and Beal will extend the terms of a $486 million loan until December 2020 from 2012. The question of what the casino company is actually worth may be key to figuring out what its future will be. Trump is a savvy businessman and may have chosen to act now because he thought he could get his company back for a low price.

If there's anything Donald Trump believes in, it's that real estate in a good location will always have its value. That might explain why he picked a Colonial style mansion in Beverly Hills with a Rodeo Drive address. The Real Estalker dishes that Donald Trump bought the home last summer and has put it back on the market for $12 million. The home itself is a 10,442 square foot mansion located close to the Beverly Hills Hotel. The home was built in 1981 and the property includes a pool and tennis court.

The listing shows this property as 'looking for backup' and the Real Estalker Mama says that is is in escrow after less than two weeks on the open market. It is unknown if Trump ever lived in the six-bedroom home or even ever set foot inside. The listing says the over 31,000 square foot lot is an "excellent development opportunity" so I think we are looking at a teardown on this one.

Once again the use of the Donald Trump name has gotten a developer in trouble. Earlier this year angry investors sued Donald Trump and Los Angeles developer Irongate Wilshire over the failure of the Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico. Now some of the buyers at the new Trump International Hotel & Tower Waikiki Beach Walk have filed a lawsuit looking to get out of their sales contracts. Once again they said that Irongate misrepresented Donald Trump's role in one of their projects. The sellers claim that Irongate said in 2006 that Donald Trump was a co-developer of the 38-story project but that the developer had only licensed the Trump name. The lawsuit alleges that Irongate concealed the terms of the license. The popular project set records in 2006 when sales opened and the units sold out in a single day with units selling for millions of dollars.

The lawsuit says that the buyers were only told right before final deposits were due that the project was Trump in name only. This led to concerns about the worth of the real estate if Trump pulls his name from the project. The AP reports that the lawsuit will be amended to add more buyers. The Trump name was also involved in a similar lawsuit in Florida. Trump is not named in these lawsuits but certainly they must bolster his belief in the value of his name and brand.

The mansion that Donald Trump sold in Palm Beach, Florida last year might be at the center of a major divorce battle. Russian billionaire fertilizer mogul Dmitri Rybolovlev and his wife bought the house for $95 million back in 2008. Now Elena Rybolovlev says her husband has been unfaithful and she wants 50 percent of the couple's marital assets, a number she puts between $6 billion and $12 billion. One of the items at issue will be the 33,000-square-foot property. She has asked the court to take jurisdiction over property because she is worried her husband will begin hiding and transferring his assets. Already she says that an art and furniture collection worth around $670 million has been moved out of her reach.

The Palm Beach Post reports that in July 2008, through County Road Property, Rybolovlev paid $95 million cash for the home. Trump had bought the mansion for $41.35 million in 2004 and restored it, asking at one point, for $125 million for the home. Rybolovlev said he purchased the mansion as an investment, the couple spend most of their time in Switzerland. If he has to sell he might be in trouble. For a while Palm Beach was faring well amidst Florida's real estate turmoil but lately it seems like the bigger mansions are slower to move. One that we've been keeping an eye on, Casa Nana, has been on the market for $72.5 million since last summer. Check it out in the gallery below.

Donald Trump may have won the Scottish government's approval to build a massive seaside golf resort in the Highlands, but squabbles over the project continue. In an amusing column by Sarah Lyall, who delights in chronicling the quirkiness of British culture, The New York Times reports that Michael Forbes, the local fisherman and quarry worker whose 23-acre property lies within Trump's proposed development, is standing firm in his refusal to sell the land he's lived on for 41 years. He's painted a big anti-Trump motto on the side of his barn and won't even open mail from Trump's people. Trump calls Forbes' property, which includes a series of weathered outbuildings, a "monstrosity" that should be improved or condemned. In another twist, a Scottish architecture magazine derided Edinburgh's preliminary approval of Trump's plans by bestowing its Pockmark Award for the year's worst planning decision. The $1.5 billion development, which Trump says remains on track and could break ground in early 2010, calls for two 18-hole golf courses, a 450-room hotel, 950 vacation homes and 500 single-family homes. The property sits along the North Sea, eight miles north of Aberdeen.

Back in the States, Trump's also making news with this golf plans. He purchased the Lowes Island Club in Loudon County, Va., outside Washington, earlier this year and has vowed to renovate its two courses so well as to attract a PGA Tour event. He's also announced new initiation fees: $75,000 for regular golf memberships, $175,000 for corporate memberships, and $25 for social, or nongolf, memberships.

Last month angry investors sued Donald Trump and Los Angeles developer Irongate Wilshire over the failure of the Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico. Now Trump is fighting back with a lawsuit of his own. His lawsuit accuses Irongate Wilshire's principals of not following through on the plans for the five-star resort which bore his name.

Would-be owners of the condos are asking the courts for the return of $32 million of down payments made in 2006 and 2007. Trump's suit is for $40 million in compensatory and punitive damages and that the lawsuit will help buyers get their money back. The LA Times reports that Trump felt "unfairly targeted" by the buyers' lawsuit because he was not a developer of the project, it was just using his name but that he doesn't like to see people lose money. The owners just want their money back whether it comes from Trump or anyone else.

First Rush Limbaugh vowed to sell his home in New York City because of the new millionaire tax, now Donald Trump has come out against the tax hikes. Trump was recently on the Neil Cavuto show where he said that he believes the tax will be a "total disaster for the state."

Trump went on to tout the benefits of Florida and its governor, Charlie Crist. While Trump isn't threatening to leave New York he says that it doesn't make sense for people to have to pay millions in taxes especially if they make the money elsewhere. Trump claims to have spoken to "literally 25 to 30 people" that are considering leaving New York.

We've certainly chatted about this Montana millionaires' resort over the past six months as it filed for Chapter 11 and then finally for bankruptcy. Now, with bids to purchase the property due in the next month, offers are emerging with interest even expressed from Donald Trump. Although Trump isn't aggressively pursuing the Club, considering its many extensive issues, he is investigating the possibility of associating the Trump name with the golf and ski resort. If the club isn't purchased, what then?

Investors in the Donald-Trump-branded Baja Mexico project have sued Trump now that the project has folded. I'd been expecting this since November when we wrote about the troubles for the Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico and received comments from burned investors. The project was not being built by Trump but he lent his name to the project and condo buyers say they invested based on the value of that name. Those who bought into the project have lost all their invested money, a reported total of $32 million on units that ranged in price from the mid $300,000s to over $2 million. No one seems to be sure exactly where the money went. CBS News has an interview with Ivanka Trump who says she is sorry for those people that lost money but that she and her father are "in the same boat" in terms of being taken in by the developers. Ivanka is named in the lawsuit along with her father and her brother, Donald Trump Jr. as well as the project's developers, Irongate Development, its partner company Punta Bandera Investors USA, and its real estate brokers S&P Destination Properties.

This isn't the first time Trump's selling of his well-recognized name has gotten him in trouble. Last June, condo buyers filed a lawsuit against the developers of the Trump Towers complex in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla. for using the Trump name to attract buyers. That project is also not being developed by Trump and per the terms of the agreement Trump's name can only be used temporarily and could be changed once the buildings are completed. Based on this information and a fear that the condos will be worth less without the Trump brand, buyers sought cancel sales contracts worth over $100 million and to have around $20 million in deposits returned. Donald Trump was not named in the suit.

Trump has put his name on everything from vodka to office furniture but lawsuits like these as well as the troubles that have befallen his Trump-branded Atlantic City casino empire are eroding that name's prestige.

All is not well in the world of the Donald. As Bloomberg reports, Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka stepped down from the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. as the company faces a possible bankruptcy next week. Trump, who was chairman of the board, now says he has no idea whether or not there will be a bankruptcy filing. It seems likely. Trump Entertainment has to make a $53 million bond payment by February 17th. The company has already extended this due date four times sine the grace period was up at the end of last year. If an agreement can't be reached either the company will file bankruptcy or the bondholders could force it into involuntary bankruptcy.

Donald Trump still controls 28 percent of the stock. He offered to buy the rest of the company but was turned down by bondholders. Trump Entertainment's three casinos have already been through bankruptcy twice and Trump is reportedly not too happy about having his name attached to a company that could be going down the tubes. The company which was once worth $842 million is now worth just $7.3 million, a mere pittance in Trump terms.

Also at issue is the continued implosion of the Atlantic City resort economy. Gambling fell by 7.6 percent in 2008 as some gamblers stayed away and others went to casinos in other states. Major casinos in the area have either stalled out mid-construction or had to make deep layoffs. The Borgata cut 400 jobs in November and the $2.5 billion Revel casino project may be delayed for at least a year. Even without massive debt, Trump's three Atlantic City casinos would be facing a tough time. Given the economic climate and the amount of money owed it seems they may be doomed.