Commercial Real Estate Finance

Posts Tagged ‘AIG’

Mark Cuban, an entrepreneur best known for his very hands-on ownership of the Dallas Mavericks, wrote a blog article recently that was essentially a rant on quant traders.  Cuban points out a lot of problems with the regulation, motivation, and morality of Wall Street.  I disagree with most of the solutions Cuban suggests to these problems because I think the solutions he proposes are contradictory to the root of the problem.  To Cuban’s credit though, at least he is trying to think of ways to solve the problems he’s identified.  I don’t think anyone really has a solution to regulate morality in the face of making huge profits.  So rather than propose my own solutions, I will just focus on a particular point Cuban made about systemic risk.  

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Hint: Stuy-Town's not the biggest

Toward the end of last year, Jerry Ascierto of Apartment Finance Today published a list of the largest multi-family real estate transactions to have taken place in the ‘oughts.’  It’s no surprise that many of these deals were acquisitions of REIT assets considering few private owners own as many units as the large public companies.  The most interesting transaction in the list, in my opinion, is the #1 largest multi-family deal; not because of its size, but because the deal went through in spite of a collapsing CMBS market.  That deal was a harbinger of things to come.  When CMBS financing was unavailable, Fannie and Freddie stepped in to push the deal through.  Hmmm…that sounds like every other multi-family deal that has traded since then.

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10. You aren’t in control More recently as we watch credit card companies increase rates, banks penalize their best customers, and governments shift and change policies on a regular basis we learned another valuable lesson: credit should be used as a safety net, not a crutch. With guidelines and terms of use left largely to the whims of corporate giants and legislators, you can be left feeling like a puppet on a string. The big lesson here: it’s their game, and they can change the rules whenever they want.

9. Optimism vs. blinders There is a big difference between optimism regarding investments, business trends, and economic forecasts, and just moving blindly ahead assuming that economic conditions will remain positive. Bubbles burst, businesses fail, and jobs are lost. It is a fact of economic life that we often lose sight of risk during the euphoria of the good times, and it can be a costly lesson that is all too clear when we are on the financial downslide.
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The 10 Biggest Bailout Recipients -

The Guy who took down CitiBank via Subprime Loans, former Co-President Thomas Maheras, has Reinvented Himself in a Big Way….Take a Look.

Insurance Industry Insight with former AIG head Hank Greenberg, and a look at his new found success with a new company.

There has been much talk, and many machinations of the current “Banking Bill” being drafted by Barney Frank in Congress. After many Wall Street banks have emerged from the credit crisis largely unscathed, mostly due to the government aid they received through bailout money, Main Street has been  in an uproar, and Congress plans to do something about it.  Mainly, they are attempting to make the cost of Wall Street banks doing business a lot higher. So what’s in this bill, and is is good for the economy?  There are three main points in this bill that will be the focus of this article. Let’s take a look. Read the rest of this entry »

In yesterday’s news, Goldman Sachs announced second quarter results that were much better than had been anticipated. Quarterly earnings surged 33%, and in the process Goldman, Wall Street’s darling investment bank for over a decade now, didn’t just beat expectations, they obliterated them.  So is this good, or bad? Read the rest of this entry »

Why Ratings Agencies Who’ve Failed, Get A Pass

There was a recent article in the NY Times that asked a question most people haven’t had the time to think about, but is a great question nonetheless.  With the entire banking industry, AIG, the government, the auto industry, and the credit card industry all taking a serious blow both financially and in image, one question remains. How have the ratings agencies, who misrepresented the creditworthiness of massive pools of residential and commercial subprime mortgages, which  got our economy into the mess its currently in, escaped similar ridicule, regulation, and oversight? Read the rest of this entry »

The Week of June 6-12

- Opus West announced this week, that although they are hurting, they are not quite dead yet.

- Think big deals are dead? A 1,000,000 SF office campus traded this week for $72 million.

- Starwood Capital Group, led by Barry Sternlicht, announced plans to launch a new distressed debt REIT. Read the rest of this entry »

The Week of May 30-June 5

-  A new report emerged showing banks’ troubled CRE assets have doubled.

- Word from the NAREIT conference this week is that REIT’s are better positioned for the recovery.

- Countrywide’s ex-Chairman was charged by the SEC with fraud.

- What will be the nationwide commercial real estate impact for car dealership sites affected by GM filing for bankruptcy?

- Real Estate Lender Capmark successfully reorganized its financing to stay afloat.
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