About $1.8B worth of commercial property loans, mostly backed by apartment buildings, could soon hit the market as Blackstone looks to offload debt acquired through the failure of Signature Bank.
A joint venture that also includes Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Rialto Capital is marketing the performing loans, according to anonymous sources who spoke with Bloomberg. The JV was awarded a 20% stake in a $17B Signature loan pool via a December auction.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. revealed the winning bids for Signature’s $33B loan portfolio just before the holidays, and many had hoped the auction results would shed some light on how values have shifted for commercial property over the last few years.
That hasn’t happened just yet, at least not in New York City, where the majority of the portfolio’s mortgages are concentrated. But what those buyers do with their holdings could say a lot about the future of the market.
“Unfortunately, the pools were so large that it’s really hard to make much of them, and they’re so varied,” Victor Sozio, one of the founding partners at Ariel Property Advisors, told Bisnow in a previous interview.
“It’s very hard to know what value was placed on those assets, and it probably is going to be a lot more interesting on the second sale, when they sell these things again or when assets start being foreclosed on.”
