Word: khafif
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...Khafif says Trump's name will help the country's image makeover. "Before it was Panama and Noriega," he explains, referring to Manuel Noriega, the notorious general who ruled the country from 1983 to 1989. "But now it will be Panama and Trump." Or at least he hopes so. "We bet $400 million on it," Khafif says. (From TIME's Archives: The Fall of Manuel Noriega...
...Khafif sounds proprietary about something with Trump's name on it, it's because the project was his idea in the first place. When the Colombian-born developer came up with the plans for the building in 2005, amid Panama City's real-estate explosion, he realized it was too big to be financed without a major-league brand name. Khafif knew that Trump had been in Panama in 2003 for the Miss Universe Pageant, so he asked a mutual friend to set up a meeting in New York. "I know the guy has an ego and likes pretty things...
...meeting happened in 2005 and Khafif said he was surprised to learn how much homework Trump had done beforehand. "He had done a lot of due diligence. That's what let me walk through that door; it's not easy to walk through that door," Khafif says. Trump "already knew that the country was booming," but "hates to fly or leave the country." The day after the meeting, Khafif said he received an early morning phone call. "I hear a voice that sounded like Trump, but I thought it was friend who can imitate voices. Two minutes later I realized...
...next week, Ivanka visited Panama City and liked what she saw. "Panama is a spectacular, thriving country, changing by the day," Ivanka told TIME in an email. "It's been amazing for me to see the growth of Panama City first hand." "She's a very intelligent young woman," Khafif says. "Sometimes I think she's even smarter than her dad about certain things." The contract was signed and the project was launched in New York City in 2006 - the same day authorities back in the Latin American nation announced a dramatic $5.2 billion expansion of the Panama Canal...
...Panamanian market, the Trump Ocean Club is partially financed by a $230 million bond offering from Bear Sterns. That bond is now being handled by JP Morgan following the collapse of Bear Sterns in the 2008 global financial crisis. "Without Trump, we would have lost our shirt," Khafif admits. Since then, more than 2,000 construction workers add a new floor each week, silencing many of the earlier skeptics who claimed the project would never get off the ground...