Donald Trump resigns as director of four Scottish golf firms
Companies House filings show Trump resigned directorships day before his inauguration but kept ultimate ownership
Donald Trump has resigned as a director of his four Scottish golf and tourism firms, raising fresh questions about the US presidents business interests.
Filings at Companies House, the UK government agency that holds and publishes documents on all British businesses, show Trump resigned as a director of the four companies on 19 January, the day before his inauguration.
However, no filings show any change to Trumps ultimate ownership of the businesses, which centre on his two golf resorts in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire and have an estimated investment value of more than 180m.
According to the documents, the president has resigned as a director for Trump International Golf Club Scotland, which owns the course and boutique hotel that Trump opened north of Aberdeen in 2012.
He has also resigned as director of two firms which own the Trump Turnberry resort in Ayrshire SLC Turnberry and its parent company Golf Recreation Scotland.
The fourth company is DT Connect Europe, which owns the Sikorsky helicopter that Trump brought from Florida in 2014 to transport his family between their two Scottish courses and to service wealthy golfers flying in to Prestwick airport, north of Turnberry.
Trump pledged earlier in January to resign directorships in all his companies in an effort to satisfy intense criticism from White House ethics experts about the risks of conflicts of interest between his business interests and his presidency.
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Trump said day-to-day control of the Trump Organisations businesses would pass to his sons Eric and Donald Jr and a company executive, Allen Weisselberg, who would run them in a trust.
The change in directorships appears to leave Eric Trump as the most dominant family member in Scotland. He is now the sole director of Golf Recreation Scotland, which has Trump Turnberry as its registered business address.
But Democrat and Republican ethics experts have been scathing about Trumps divestment strategy since he has failed to sell his shares and holdings, nor has he put them in a blind trust, which means he will continue to be a direct beneficiary of their profits or future sale.
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Company records seen for Trump International Golf Club Scotland in Aberdeenshire, the loss-making course into which the president has sunk 40m, show that 999 of its 1,000 shares were held directly by Trump in September 2015 the most recent filing detailing the businesss share ownership.
The latest company report discloses that the resort can only survive with Trumps money. The clubs executives said the resorts expansion plans, potentially including a major new private housing estate, were not affected by Trumps pledge to drop all new or pending overseas investments, since they were simply future phasing of an existing property.