Donald Trump Will Have to Spend Millions to Save His Business

Former President Donald Trump will have to spend millions to save his real estate empire in New York, regardless of whether he wins his appeal in his civil fraud case or not.

Because the New York state court requires Trump to deposit the full amount he's been ordered to pay, including interest, into a court account, the former president will have to spend hundreds of millions even before he appeals last week's verdict.

Given the size of the award, experts predict that Trump will likely move to get a bond, which could cost him roughly $18 million alone to obtain from a surety company plus the millions added by the 9 percent interest rate. So, Trump will have to pay over $400 million before he challenges the ruling, David Slarskey, a business litigation lawyer, told NBC News ahead of last week's ruling.

On Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million in the civil fraud trial, as well as interest on top of that money. Trump was also barred from conducting business in New York State for three years and from applying for loans from any financial institution registered in the state for three years. Trump has maintained his innocence.

With interest, Trump already owes the state nearly $454 million as of Thursday, and that amount goes up $87,502 every day until he pays. New York Attorney Letitia James has already said that she'll begin seizing some of Trump's assets if he's unable to cover the bill.

"Even for Trump, $455 million is hard to come by," legal commentator Jonathan Turley wrote in a Wednesday op-ed for the New York Post.

"Trump must come up with almost half a billion dollars to park with the court. Even with a bond, the high costs of securing a guarantor could come at a premium," he said. "It would cost a fortune to the bond holder just to carry the risk even if Trump prevails on appeal."

This could mean that Trump may need to pledge some of his New York properties or assets in order to secure the appeal bond.

"Paying such enormous damages seriously depletes the net worth of even a self-proclaimed billionaire," Michael Conway, former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, wrote in a Monday op-ed for MSNBC. "More devastating to Trump, the court's decision eviscerates his public image as a shrewd New York real estate mogul — an image he has carefully cultivated for decades."

Turley argued that part of the reason Engoron handed down such an "astronomical figure" was to "make it difficult or impossible for a defendant to appeal, absent declaring bankruptcy or selling off assets at distress prices."

But Conway argued that Engoron was right in his ruling, citing the judge's "detailed fact-finding" and Trump's "refusal to admit error," which showed he needed to be "judicially restrained."

Conway also acknowledged that Trump's financial headwinds cannot be viewed in isolation. Trump has been ordered by two separate juries to pay columnist E. Jean Carroll $5 million and $83.3 million in damages in the pair of defamation cases she won against him.