Bon Griffin has retired as CEO of Trump Entertainments Resorts saying the move comes more than a year after he originally planned.
Griffin told the Associated Press that he is retiring to Colorado, where his family moved six months ago.
Griffin stayed to oversee the company’s fourth bankruptcy and the acquisition of its lone casino, the Trump Taj Mahal, to billionaire Carl Icahn.
That transfer has been delayed while waiting for a court ruling on whether the company will have to restore health benefits to union workers at the Trump Taj Mahal. A bankruptcy court ruled the company could cut the benefits, but Atlantic City’s main casino union has appealed that ruling. That has set off a bitter fight between the union, Icahn and Trump Entertainment.
Griffin told the AP he can no longer wait for the court to act.
“My plan was always to retire at 55,” Griffin told the AP. “But when I hit it, we were in bankruptcy, so I stayed. Then 56 came and we’re still in bankruptcy. This could go on another six months. I’ve tried to hang in there, but it’s time to leave.”
Griffin was hired in September 2010 to succeed Mark Juliano as CEO of the company. Griffin saw the shutdown of Atlantic City’s Trump Plaza in 2014 and then the bankruptcy proceeding.
Griffin also told the news service that harsh criticism over Trump Entertainment’s stance on a Stockton University attempt to buy the closed Showboat casino hurt his family.
Trump Entertainment, through the adjacent Taj Mahal, invoked a 1988 covenant between the casinos that said the Showboat must be operated as a casino. The university had planned to convert it into an Atlantic City campus. Trump Entertainment’s move essentially blocked the school’s plan.
“A lot of our friends that we went to Stockton with now blame us for this,” Griffin said. “We lost friends over it.”
Griffin said the company will promote someone from within its ranks to succeed him until Icahn takes over. The appointment of an interim CEO should happen by the end of the week, the AP reported.
