Al Barbarino

Allianz Real Estate of America has provided a $95.5m loan to RED Development and its equity partner BIG Shopping Centers USA for the refinancing of the Village Pointe Shopping Center in Omaha, Nebraska. The 447,279 sf shopping center — built in 2004 and set across 78 acres — includes 13 buildings, more than 60 distinct tenant spaces […]

Transamerica Life Insurance Company has provided an affiliate of North Dakota-based Sterling Real Estate Trust with $62.6m in financing for the acquisition of a 1,422-unit apartment portfolio in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota — aka the Twin Cities. The loans back five of seven garden-level apartment buildings that the REIT bought for a reported $103.5m. […]

TPG has acquired the majority of a $2.5bn portfolio of high-yield real estate loans from Deutsche Bank’s Special Situations Group, taking along with it a team of 11 origination and risk management professionals. The private equity firm, through a newly-formed REIT called TPG Real Estate Finance Trust (TRT), acquired a 75% stake in the existing portfolio, and it has raised $750m in capital from institutional investors for new loan originations. Deutsche Bank retains a 25% interest.

Many of the concerns that rippled through the CREFC Miami conference this week were directed at the US CMBS market. Delegates asked tough questions about the quality of loans, underwriting and leverage levels. The Canadian CMBS panel this morning at the Fountainbleau Miami Beach offered a striking contrast, with a range of top Canadian lending […]

The cheery mood of the CRE Finance Council’s annual conference in Miami Beach carried over last night into a two-hour cocktail reception followed by a variety of late night industry parties. The sentiment is that the US real estate markets are strong, but inevitably some have begun to vocalize concerns about troubling trends in the industry, avoiding […]

The US Senate voted today 93-4 to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) for an additional six years. The CRE Finance Council issued a statement noting its position at the forefront of the advocacy effort to renew TRIA today as the CREFC Miami conference was in full swing. Created following the September 11 terrorist […]

The CRE Finance Council’s annual Miami Beach conference kicked off todayat the Fontainebleau Hotel with an energy reflective of the buoyant real estate markets. A 10:30 a.m. networking break after the first official panelist forum saw a swarm of industry experts exchanging pleasantries and sowing the seeds of a new year’s deals. "We're all here to make money, right?" one delegate put it bluntly. Some were already already holding down positions at the hotel’s grandiose circular bar . (Was it really water in that martini glass?).

Bank of America provided a $76.6m loan backing KBS REIT III’s acquisition of the Ten Almaden office building in downtown San Jose, California. The three-year, floating-rate loan represents a 66% loan-to-value ratio on the reported $116.7m December purchase of the 309,255 sq ft, Class A building from seller Equity Office.

Lending giant Wells Fargo has provided Boston-based Rockpoint Group with a $115m loan for the acquisition of the Wimbledon apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Rockpoint paid J.P. Morgan $218m for the recently-renovated 28-story apartment building at 200 East 82nd Street, putting the loan-to-value at 52%. J.P. Morgan paid $150.8m for the property […]

Spare an unforeseen rally, it’s looking like the year-end US CMBS issuance tally will fall short of the triple-digit billions number many had predicted, anticipated and/or hoped for. As of today, there was $87bn of CMBS issuance, according to TREPP.