John Cleese, one of the great classic philosophers of the mid-twentieth century, made that inauspicious (from the perspective of the Shop Keeper) observation, “This parrot is dead!” To which Michael Palin responded that it was merely resting. (It’s better in drag and with the East Ender accent, but you get the idea.) The Parrot skit … Continue Reading
Well, we’ve had the big reveal and the administration’s new tax plan is out. This plan, announced with a great deal of fanfare, feels more like a campaign promise than an actual executable plan. At two hundred forty-six words from end to end (four different typesets, three different fonts, three colors, weird spacing and a … Continue Reading
The Auditing Standards Board (the “ASB”) of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants recently released new standards as part of the “Attestation Clarity Project” with the goal of redrafting all its standards “in clarity format” (what format were they in before? And, while we’re at it, can we try to use English here? Clarity format?). This Project will require compliance by … Continue Reading
The 2017 CREFC January Conference, which took place last week at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel, provided an opportunity for those in the commercial real estate finance industry to reflect on an eventful 2016, and look ahead to 2017. Although attendance was down by almost 11% this year (we’ll blame Zika), around 1,600 people attended … Continue Reading
Your correspondent is fresh from the front-lines of the risk retention wars where great armies of lawyers, bankers and advisers are fixedly staring at each other, staring out of the redoubts of their respective defensive crouches in a complex, multidimensional chess game. All are fervently hoping against hope that something or someone does something to … Continue Reading
Returning to our theme that nothing’s easy and everything keeps changing, here is one out of left field. Let’s talk Probable Maximum Loss (“PML”) and seismic risk. ASTM International, the market standard setting organization for everything from toilet bowls to condoms, has just issued an amended seismic standards: Standard Guide for Assessments of Buildings (E2026-16) … Continue Reading
And now to return to our commentary a few weeks back about the stultifying impact of ill-thought through rules and regulations (at best) (Brexit has intervened). This is our Regulatory State which broadly attempted to pick winners and losers and modify market behavior, to get an engineered outcome by using the blunderbuss of proscriptive rules … Continue Reading
The slow start to 2016 did not dampen the enthusiasm at CREFC’s Annual Conference, held last week in New York City. The conference saw record attendance, with standing-room-only crowds at virtually every panel. As with the Industry Leaders Conference in January, the hot topics on people’s minds were risk retention (and the rest of the … Continue Reading
We thought it would be useful to give a quick, interim update on the slow-motion train wreck that is our industry’s response to the upcoming effectiveness of the Risk Retention Rule. For those of you who have been blessedly snoozing under a rock these past couple of years, the Risk Retention Rule becomes effective on … Continue Reading
More than two years after the first single-family rental securitization, the single-family rental market continues to evolve and grow. The rise of single-family rentals reflects both a demographic shift among the American population and a reactionary change in consumer habits resulting from the financial crises. According to U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans that … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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
What happens when a debtor, whose loan is pooled and securitized, files for bankruptcy? Are payments made to investors recoverable as fraudulent transfers or preferences? Until recently, no published court opinion addressed this issue. However, in what is sure to be welcome news for investors in securitization vehicles, late last month, a Bankruptcy Court in … Continue Reading
Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loans allow property owners to finance clean energy improvements to their properties generally secured by property liens senior to mortgages through tax assessments. Moody’s recently released a special comment expressing some concerns and not-so-subtle hints that it thinks that lenders and securitizers should take PACE programs seriously.… Continue Reading
We at Crunched Credit have taken a bit of a pause of late. It is, of course, the dog days of summer. But it’s time to get back into the fray. Let’s start by noting the doldrums seem to have taken a pass. From where we sit, the markets seem to be in robust health. … Continue Reading
In between record snowfall and ice storms here in Philadelphia, a number of Dechert attorneys went down to sunny Orlando Florida for the MBA CREF 2014 Conference.… Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
The new Risk Retention Rule published jointly by the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Securities Exchange Commission, with a little help from the Federal Housing Finance Agency and HUD slouched into the light of day on August 28, in the … Continue Reading
This week, over a thousand industry participants made their way through a rain soaked Manhattan for the start of CREFC’s Annual Conference. The low hum of attendees taking conference calls in corners and tapping messages on iphones provided a constant auditory backdrop to the event and aptly conveyed the velocity of the CMBS industry in … Continue Reading
Last week, we and a few of our colleagues here at Dechert attended CREFC’s 2013 Distressed Debt Summit. Echoing the mood at January’s CREFC conference, the mood at the NY Athletic Club last week was upbeat about the CMBS market as a whole but the general sentiment, with respect to the distressed debt market, is … Continue Reading
The warm weather is not the only thing descending on New York City this week as CREFC hosts its annual Distressed Debt Summit at the New York Athletic Club overlooking Central Park. March in New York City is famous for the Big East Tournament (speaking of distressed…), St. Patrick’s Day parades and love blooming along … Continue Reading
Dechert’s securitization team is looking forward to the American Securitization Forum 2013 (“ASF 2013”) conference starting this Sunday, as it is expected to be once again the largest capital markets conference in the world. ASF 2013 is expecting over 4,500 participants who will all convene at the Aria Hotel and Convention Center in fabulous Las … Continue Reading
After a night of fun at Dechert’s party at the SLS Hotel, many of us needed a pick-me-up on Tuesday morning. Those of us that dragged ourselves out of bed and into the roundtable discussion on market issues and opportunities were not disappointed. The quick hitting discussion by over two dozen industry insiders, including Crunched Credit’s … Continue Reading
South Beach will welcome over 1200 lenders, borrowers, servicers, lawyers and other service providers to the January 2013 CREFC Conference for another party in the city where the heat is on. The conference kicks off on Monday with a series of forums for agency investors, high yield debt investors, issuers, portfolio lenders, servicers, B-Piece buyers … Continue Reading