Capital Markets

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The conduit market does not absorb a lot of bandwidth in my day-to-day practice; I’m more of a CRE/CLO/warehouse/SASB/new products/innovation sort of guy.  But it’s painful to watch this marquee capital markets product wither away, a product that  transformed $200 billion of mortgage loans into securities in a single year.  That biz might limp over the finish line with a meager $25 billion this year.  What happened?  The demand for CRE leverage certainly hasn’t changed.  The CRE market has gotten significantly bigger since 2008 and consequently, the need for leverage has grown concomitantly.  The nature of the underlying real estate assets hasn’t changed all that much, nor the nature of the ownership structure, albeit it is probably a bit more institutional today than it was in 2008.  The product is no different, in large measure, today than it was back then and indeed in some minor, twiddling respects might even be better from the perspective of the borrower.
Continue Reading Can We (Should We) Try to Fix the Conduit Before It’s Gone?

As is our tradition here at Crunched Credit, each year, about this time, we award our Golden Turkey Awards.  Once again, I must say that we are utterly blessed with so many worthy candidates. The truly deserving have once again wrangled with vision and astounding persistence to earn a spot on our acclaimed list.  To…

Tim Sloan resigned as the CEO of Wells Fargo a few months ago.  I had briefly worked with Tim and much admired him so, on a personal level, this was sad.  Now, Mr. Sloan’s resignation might have been a compelling and obvious move in any crisis consultant’s playbook, so I get that – but – oh, the vilification!

This commentary is about the ease with which we now embrace vilification and the substitution of ad hominem attacks for policy discussion about ideas and about the danger this poses to capital market participants.
Continue Reading The Calamity of the Weaponized Narrative

The new Opportunity Zones program that came to us in 2017’s major tax reform offers investors the chance to roll the capital gains from the sale of any appreciated property into new investments, located within specially designated areas known as Opportunity Zones, and defer—and potentially partially eliminate— capital gains taxes on such sale. The program is similar to a 1031 Exchange, but with a socially conscious geographic focus, that applies broadly to investments across asset classes – not just to real estate. The tax benefits of the program will begin stepping down for investments made after December 31, 2019, so the clock is ticking on the chance to pull capital out of appreciated assets and invest it in a Qualified Opportunity Fund (QOF). The time is now to start thinking about where all this capital will be sitting when the music stops.
Continue Reading Opportunity Zones: Monetary Musical Chairs, Anyone?

On June 6, 2016, the Rapporteur of the European Parliament released a draft legislative resolution to modify EU Risk Retention.  The stated goal of this draft is to promote “Simple, Transparent and Standardized” (STS) securitization.  Since STS securitization assets must be fully self-liquidating, commercial real estate (CRE) is again left out in this proposal; not…