Law360 interviewed Manatt's Tom Muller, co-chair of the firm's Real Estate & Land Use Practice, on the recovery of the commercial mortgage-backed securities industry.
As reported by Law360, a surge of activity in the U.S. real estate market is expected in 2013, and though the market is still far from the peak it reached before the housing collapse in 2008, deal activity picked up strongly in 2012 in several key submarkets. The U.S. property market has become an attractive investment target for traditional lenders, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds, among others.
Industry insiders told the publication that the burgeoning recovery of the commercial mortgage-backed securities sector underscores the overall health of the U.S. property market, and demand for CMBS products is fueled by maturing debt and the lack of yield in the marketplace.
Though many traditional lenders have relaunched their CMBS practices with more stringent standards than were practiced in the mid-2000s, several global banks, such as Credit Suisse AG, have stayed out of the CMBS market.
"When I hear firms like Credit Suisse say they are not going back into CMBS, I hear a big 'yet' on the end of it," said Muller.
Read the article here.