re. Loop

LeFrak, Roth dish on Trump’s lofty infrastructure goals

$1T plan would be “fairly well leveraged,” Vornado chief says

April 25, 2017

How much power does the national infrastructure council assembled by Donald Trump really have? Richard LeFrak, one of its members, stayed silent for a few seconds and then sighed deeply, to the laughter of the audience. “That’s a good question,” he said. “Some of us do have the president’s ear from time to time, and so if that means the commission will have some authority, that’s the authority.”

LeFrak’s TRData LogoTINY comment set the expectations at the International Finance & Infrastructure Forum hosted by Bloomberg and the China General Chamber of Commerce Monday: No one is in any position to predict what infrastructure spending plan will emerge from the White House, if one emerges at all. But the assembled investors seemed to sense there are new opportunities for profit.

Jim Reynolds, who co-founded the JLC Infrastructure Fund with basketball star-turned real estate investor Magic Johnson (also on the panel), argued for an all-out privatization of some public infrastructure assets. “Why is it that the governments need to own all these things?” he asked, arguing that Heathrow is a better airport than LaGuardia because of private investors. (The more complicated issue of whether privatizing airports and rest stops creates harmful monopolies was left unaddressed.)

https:// therealdeal.com/2017/04/25/lefrak-roth-dish-on-trumps-lofty-infrastructure-goals/

Trump Abandons Plan for Council on Infrastructure

August 17, 2017

The infrastructure council, which was still being formed, would have advised Trump on his plan to spend as much as $1 trillion upgrading roads, bridges and other public works. Its cancellation follows Trump’s announcement Wednesday that he was disbanding two other business advisory panels.

Corporate chief executive officers this week had started to quit both the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum in protest over Trump’s remarks that appeared to confer legitimacy on white supremacists following a violent rally Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia.

https:// www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-17/trump-is-said-to-abandon-plan-for-council-on-infrastructure