Steven Roth (born 1941) is an American real estate investor, the founder and chairman of Vornado Realty Trust, the largest commercial landlord in New York City.
[5] In 1995, Vornado purchased a controlling interest in Alexander's—the former retailer that had declared bankruptcy in 1992—for $54.8 million from Citicorp, adding Alexander's substantial real estate holdings to his existent portfolio.
They developed the site, then sold it in 2005, spending the proceeds on 1290 Sixth Avenue and a San Francisco skyscraper, with Trump receiving 30% ownership of both.
Reporting on this payout, Crains News York noted that “Vornado is one of at least 10 New York companies that pay executives dividends on shares they don’t own,” a form of compensation that exists “because companies regularly grant executives restricted shares that don’t vest for several years.”[8] The Associated Press reported in June 2017 that Vornado was one of three finalists for a $1.7 billion contract to build a new headquarters building in Washington D.C. for the FBI.
Critics, noting Roth's role as a Trump infrastructure advisor and a consultant with the White House Office of American Innovation, led by Jared Kushner, charged that any government contract with Vornado would represent a conflict of interest.
[14] In July 2017, Roth advised U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao not to cancel construction of the Gateway Project, which would link New Jersey with Penn Station in Manhattan.
[8] The president later spoke of establishing a national panel of "very smart people that know how to spend money properly", with Roth and another New York developer Richard LeFrak as co-heads, to review infrastructure projects.
[citation needed] He also served as chair of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) and as a member of the Board of Overseers of Tuck.