Hollinger to sell tower stake to Trump

A PROPERTY partnership with Donald Trump appears to have become the latest venture to succumb to collateral damage from the fallout from the Hollinger sell-off.

According to the Chicago Tribune, rival paper to the Hollinger group's Sun-Times, Trump is days away from buying out Hollinger's half of a 90-storey Trump Tower development in Chicago on the site of the Sun-Times building.

The deal dates from nearly three years ago when Hollinger executive David Radler - then publisher of the Sun-Times - announced that he had agreed with Trump to redevelop the site of the paper.

'A lot's changed since the deal was struck,' a source close to the deal is quoted as saying. 'Hollinger came to Trump and said, We are now a seller of assets, not a buyer. It's a much different company than it was.'

Radler and media baron Lord Black are at the centre of allegations that they improperly received money from Hollinger. Those charges have led to investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

However, it has apparently done little to damage the Trump Tower project which, the Tribune reports, is selling apartments in the proposed building like hot cakes.

So far Trump has commitments of about £325m.