January 2014

I have been mulling our 2014 Outlook for some time and decided to wait until after the New Year and CREFC to write.  Just in case we got the whole Mayan calendar end of the world story wrong by a year (hey, it was 5000 years old) which would make the whole prediction thing a bit irrelevant, I elected to wait and possibly save me some work.  But we’re still here and settling into 2014.  It’s time. 
Continue Reading 2014 OUTLOOK

Over the course of three days during the second week of January, a record turn-out of over 1500 industry insiders attended CREFC’s January 2014 Conference at the Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach. On Monday night, over 500 clients found their way to Dechert’s party at the SLS Hotel to celebrate a fantastic 2013 and what most attendees think will be an even better 2014. The record attendance at the Conference and Dechert’s reception demonstrated the feeling among most attendees that the market will continue an upswing through 2014.

Although the highlight for many at the conference was Billy Bean’s standing-room only keynote address, all of the panels and seminars were extremely well attended and offered the usual insightful and entertaining commentary on the state of the industry. It was hard to find many shadows lurking around the general feeling of optimism and exuberance for 2014, but a few general trends did emerge during the conference:
Continue Reading CREFC January 2014 Conference Recap

It’s January and with that brings New Year’s resolutions, the NFL playoffs, college football bowl games (although the best game this season was watching Auburn beat Alabama with a 109 yard field goal return), and, of course, the annual CREFC conference in South Beach. This year’s line-up doesn’t disappoint, with panels titled "Best Investment Ideas: High Yield, Investment Grade, Direct Property", "Balance Sheet Lenders: Buy and Hope?", "Choosing a Lender: Just Hooking Up or A Long Term Commitment?", and "Capital Market Lenders: Buy or Goodbye?".Continue Reading 2014 CREFC Conference