Secured financing cut on several high-profile assets: Ranking of top NYC lenders August 2019

By Adam Pincus

Two of the largest loans recorded last month saw the recorded debt levels reduced compared with what each asset had been issued in recent years. That’s unusual, as most refinancing packages allow the borrower to cash out.

When the debt is cut, the borrower generally has to put cash in, reallocate the debt or exchange debt for equity. It’s unclear what the borrowers did in these instances.

The top lender by dollar volume recorded in New York City last month was JPMorgan Chase Bank with $630 million lent in 21 commercial loans greater than $5 million. The largest loan was $335 million, given to CIM Group and LIVWRK to refinance the partnership’s Dumbo office portfolio. The prior lenders, Blackstone Group and SL Green Realty, had lent a total of $375 million in recorded debt, according to media reports, which is $40 million more than the new level.

While that loan was the largest non-CMBS debt package provided in the city last month, most of the properties the bank lent on were small multifamily structures. The bank did 14 multifamily deals between $5 million and $8 million, totaling $86 million. In fact, of the 21 loans the bank provided, only three were for more than $20 million.

For this article, PincusCo Media analyzed more than 250 commercial loans of $5 million and up recorded last month with the city’s Department of Finance.

The second most active lender by dollar volume was TPG Real Estate Finance Trust, which provided only one loan for $309 million, to Beacon Capital Partners for the 371,374-square-foot office condo at 575 Fifth Avenue. This loan, too, resulted in a lower debt level on the asset than before the refinance. Deutsche Bank provided the prior loan, which was for $321 million in recorded debt.

The next most active lender was Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway and Jeffries Financial Group, with five loans totaling $298 million.

Berkadia’s largest loan was for $204.4 million to Rabsky Group, in a take-out deal secured by the 500-unit apartment building known as the Rheingold, at 10 Monteith Street, which was given its initial temporary certificate of occupancy in September 2018.

The other four loans totaling $93.375 million were all to the Stagg Group for a wide variety of property types in the Bronx, including the 10-unit building 4150 Carpenter Avenue in Wakefield. All the Berkadia debt issued to Stagg was then assigned to Fannie Mae.

The fourth most active lender was Goldman Sachs, which lent to three owners for a total of $296 million. The largest was a construction loan issued to RXR Realty, to build 476-unit rental tower in Fort Green on the campus of Long Island University.

Goldman also lent $65 million to David Werner and his partners for the acquisition of the leasehold of the rental building 2 Cooper Square in Noho. The third loan was significantly smaller, at just $8.88 million, to a 9-unit new building project in Bushwick at 503 Evergreen Avenue by Nadav Hamo’s Urban View Development Group, a prolific new development firm that concentrates on smaller buildings.

Finally, rounding out the top five, was Morgan Stanley with one loan totaling $271.7 million, issued to Blackstone for a large portfolio of apartment buildings in Chelsea and the Upper East Side. The debt was previously held by the Bank of China.

All told there were nearly 130 lenders that provided commercial loans of $5 million or more and recorded them in August.

Other active lenders by number of loans included New York Community Bank, with 18 loans valued at $234 million, and Capital One, with 12 loans totaling $84.6 million.