Last week, the House Committee on Financial Services reported out the Preserving Access to CRE Capital Act of 2016 (the “bill”) in a remarkably bipartisan sort of way (paving the way for: “Well, yes, I did vote for it, but then I voted against it.”). The bill, which was drafted and backed by CREFC, would exempt certain single asset/single borrower securitizations from the risk retention requirements, would allow the B-piece buyer to acquire the risk retention piece in a senior/subordinate capital structure and loosen the criteria for a qualified commercial real estate loan to make it more useful for CMBS players endeavoring to meet the risk retention requirements of Dodd-Frank. See Dechert’s OnPoint for a more detailed description of the bill.
Continue Reading Flash: Congress Fixes the CMBS Risk Retention Problem (Just Kidding)
OnPoint: RMBS Risk Retention is Here
Just in case you set your copy down during the cocktail hour at the SFIG & IMN ABS Vegas 2016 Conference, here is our latest OnPoint:
Click here for more information about Risk Retention.
Risk Retention and the Regulatory State: What It Means to “The Folks” in 2016 and Beyond
We may be approaching a tipping point where the burden of the new federal regulatory state, purportedly designed to make our economy stronger by making the banking system safer, will begin to demonstrably become a cure that’s worse than the disease. To my eye, much of the new regulatory apparatus feels like political theatre designed to impress the financial illiterate. Random chest thumping for populist cred on the cynical assumption that the system is big enough and robust enough to tolerate all this tampering. Of course, I could be wrong and our policy elites could really be doing all this fiddling from an honest embrace of a simplistic, jejune analysis of extremely complex systems which they largely do not understand. I’m not sure which explanation scares me more.
Continue Reading Risk Retention and the Regulatory State: What It Means to “The Folks” in 2016 and Beyond
DAMITT – How Long Does it Take to Conduct U.S. Antitrust Merger Investigations? (Update)
Dechert’s Antitrust Merger Investigation Timing Tracker (DAMITT) is at it again compiling data from 2015.
Fast Facts
Merger investigations in 2015 took an average of
9.6 months to conduct (more than 1/3 longer than the average from 2011-2013)- Federal enforcement activity resulted in 37 significant merger investigations (7 generated complaints seeking to block proposed deals and 24 were resolved by consent orders)
- Each of these figures was a record for the 5 years in which DAMITT has been tracking antitrust merger investigations
Secured Creditors Beware: Overvalued Properties in Bankruptcy
An overvalued property may now have a bigger impact on a secured creditor’s bottom-line during bankruptcy. Splitting with the Seventh Circuit, the Fifth Circuit in Southwest Securities, FSB v. Segner (In the Matter of Domistyle, Inc.), 2015 WL 9487732, held that a bankruptcy trustee may surcharge its expenses for maintaining a property even before moving to abandon the property.
Continue Reading Secured Creditors Beware: Overvalued Properties in Bankruptcy
What Are the New Partnership Audit Rules?
The recently enacted Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 amended the existing rules governing tax audits of partnerships in the U.S.
Who Does this Effect and When?
The new rules primarily impact partnerships with more than 100 partners and will generally apply to partnership taxable years after December 31, 2017. A partnership may elect to apply the new rules to tax returns for partnership taxable years after November 2, 2015 and before January 1, 2018. Certain partnerships with 100 (or fewer) partners may opt to elect out of the new rules and instead be subject to audits at the partner level.
Continue Reading What Are the New Partnership Audit Rules?
CREFC and MBA/CREF: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Alternate Universes
That whole alternate universe thing, the conceit of so many sci-fi novels, is clearly not merely the product of fevered minds. It’s real. Or, at least it seemed awfully real after having been at the CREFC meeting in Miami and the MBA/CREF meeting in Orlando during the past month.
Continue Reading CREFC and MBA/CREF: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Alternate Universes
CREFC Industry Leaders Conference 2016
The 2016 CRE Finance Council Industry Leaders Conference, held this week in Miami, was dominated by two topics– risk retention and liquidity. Almost all the forums, panels and presentations at the conference were overshadowed by the specter of risk retention and more general concerns about liquidity.
Continue Reading CREFC Industry Leaders Conference 2016
If Interesting and Prosperous is a Choice, I’ll Take Door Number Two: Perspectives on 2016
As we do each year at Crunched Credit, we take the end of a calendar year as an opportunity to stop and reflect on where we are, and what the next year might hold. Recognizing the certainty that a successful prediction is more a random event – a blind cat finding a dead mouse, than a product of wisdom and analytic prowess, it remains an important exercise. It bears repeating that refusing to take a view is actually to make a choice, and a pretty silly one at that. So as we at Dechert churn through our budgeting and planning process for 2016, we will make some assumptions about the economic environment and adjust our planning accordingly. Let’s agree, we are going to be wrong about a lot of stuff – maybe everything – but that fact doesn’t excuse the critical need for having a macro view.
Continue Reading If Interesting and Prosperous is a Choice, I’ll Take Door Number Two: Perspectives on 2016