I wrote back in the early days of 2020, or as we call it now, the “Time Before,” that we thought it made sense for key market participants to consider an early move to SOFR pricing, not just as the backstop but as the interest rate of the loans.  Frankly, we were thinking about the SASB market, and we thought that would be indeed well received by the investor community.
Continue Reading It’s Time to Initiate a SOFR Loan…Or Maybe Not

I am trying to figure out how much I care, as a businessman (as opposed to an actual living, breathing human being), about the chaos swirling around us.  Every day’s news seems more the stuff of a dramatic conceit of someone’s next thriller than reality.  Throw in a car chase and some sex, and we’ve got a movie.  (The North Carolina sexting scandal doesn’t really get us there for this purpose.)
Continue Reading Inflection Point? How Much Change Are We Really Facing?

Folks, last week I made the point that it’s extremely important to confront negative narratives about our industry before they take hold, creep into the interstices between things that are true and then somehow ossified into received wisdom.  So, taking on board my own advice, which shockingly I find compelling, I want to sound the alarm about a recent Wall Street Journal story concerning the misstatement of net operating income in our industry (I only wish I could qualify as an influencer here.  I read about two teens with millions of followers this weekend; they talk about stuff like..their hair.  Is there anyone out there that wants to know about my hair?).
Continue Reading CMBS On The Perp Walk: We Are Being Set Up!

In the fourth installment of our new LIBORcast program, Matthew Hays and Jonathan Gaynor discussed interest rate caps, derivatives and value transfer with Chatham Financial’s Rob Mangrelli and Matt Hoffman.  Tune in to hear about the cost of a SOFR interest rate cap, adoption of the ISDA protocol and rate fragmentation in the post-LIBOR market.…

We have virtually no bandwidth to deal with anything other than the pandemic, do we?  The marches of every conversation begin with “you’re okay, I trust” and end with “take care” and now we really mean that.  It’s exhausting, isn’t it?  It’s hard to even remember the “time before.”
Continue Reading There’s a New Black Swan in Town and It’s After Us!

After much anticipation and expectation, on June 25, 2020, the Federal Reserve Board, CFTC, FDIC, OCC, and SEC (the “agencies”) finalized an amendment to Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act, commonly known as the Volcker Rule, which among other things prohibits banking entities from sponsoring or acquiring ownership interests in “covered funds.”  Covered funds are entities that would be investment companies but for exemptions provided under Sections 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7) of the Investment Company Act, and generally include private equity funds and hedge funds.  The final rule, which goes into effect on October 1, mostly follows what the agencies had signaled to everyone back in the mask and quarantine-free days of January when it released proposed changes that are largely adopted in the final rule.
Continue Reading Volcker Rule Amendment: Trending Towards Flexibility

Regulators have been increasing their scrutiny of LIBOR transition efforts as they ramp up messaging stressing that the time to act is now.   The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) issued a National Exam Program Risk Alert to introduce a LIBOR Examination Initiative on the upcoming discontinuation of, and transition…

Crunched Credit’s own Rick Jones spoke with the TreppWire team for their latest podcast. Covering everything from the future of CMBS to the Great Recession, the conversation was wide reaching. Be sure to tune in for more on Rick’s interview with Sam Zell, how we’re headed for a “square root” recovery and why…

Everyone, including the least empathic in our society (aka, lawyers), knows that we should seek to uphold the golden rule and “do unto others…” with respect to family, friends, and acquaintances, but does this also apply in the corporate world?  Apparently so, as a Delaware bankruptcy court just ruled that preferred shareholders with a bankruptcy-filing…