But he is known to prefer keeping his business within his family’s hands and could turn to Ivanka, who previously held a senior position in the company, or her husband, Jared Kushner, who also has real estate experience.
Mr Trump could even consider turning to his wife, Melania, to lead the company.
Brian Quinn, a professor at Boston College Law School, told the Washington Post: “This is going to be a business that will look very different. It won’t be a family-run business. It can be a family-owned business, but it won’t be a family-run business for the next several years.”
However, it is the financial penalty which could deal the biggest immediate blow.
Financial wipeout
Mr Trump, who is the front runner to be the Republican presidential candidate in this November’s White House race, has divested some of his property holdings into more liquid assets since entering politics.
His net worth was recently estimated to be $3.1 billion by Bloomberg’s billionaires index, with about $600 million in cash assets.
He has also been ordered in a separate civil suit to pay $83.3 million to the magazine columnist E Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape.
The financial penalties, if upheld, including the interest owed, could wipe out most of Mr Trump’s disposable cash, or even force him to sell a property to cover the costs.
The ruling is a victory for Letitia James, New York’s Democratic attorney-general, who brought the case after being elected in 2019 in part on a promise to investigate Mr Trump’s business dealings.
On Friday she said Mr Trump was “finally facing accountability for his lying, cheating and staggering fraud”.
In his decision, Mr Engoron, known for his colourful style, quoted the early 18th-century English poet Alexander Pope’s declaration that “to err is human, to forgive is divine.”
Mr Trump and his sons, the judge wrote, “apparently are of a different mind”.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” he wrote.
