Forum Spotlight: B-Piece Investors
February 25, 2025
Peter Lindner (Chair), Frank Yin (Chair-Elect), and Jason Nick (Past-Chair) make up the “Leadership Working Group” of CREFC’s B-Piece Investors Forum. This group — taking their cues from the B-Piece Investor Forum members — sets the agendas and priorities for the Forum and represents their constituents on CREFC’s Policy Committee.
Key B-Piece Investors Focus Areas:
- Navigating the new normal in CMBS with B-Piece buyers playing a larger credit role, reviewing larger portfolios of loans with significant collateral movement over the course of due diligence.
- Insurance premiums continue to be a focus as certain markets are increasingly becoming cost-prohibitive to obtain insurance required under standard loan agreements. Recent events will continue to push premiums higher limiting any hopes of a slowdown in the pace of premium increases.
- The Trump administration policies and their impact on commercial real estate. Members are monitoring the Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-cutting measures and their impact on Washington DC/GSA leases.
- Property quality and underwriting standards for the increased number of multifamily loans coming to CMBS pools.
- Five-year CMBS transactions are driving volume and more transactions are getting done, but caution is still warranted as the dynamics for these transactions are still not tested.
Looking ahead: Rates appear to be stabilizing, allowing spreads to tighten and new-issue CMBS volume to continue the growth seen in 2024.
In 2025, B-Piece investors see the following as key challenges:
- Maintaining credit quality in the current rate environment as higher rates have pushed DSCRs to near historical lows.
- Maintaining pool diversity with transactions pooling office and multifamily loans.
What's next: Forum leaders look forward to presenting CREFC members with an update on their Forum at the Annual June Conference in New York.
- The chairs also seek nominations for the next Chair-Elect to join their leadership slate.
- Please submit nominations through the link: Forum Chair Elect Nominations.
To join the B-Piece Investors Forum, please register here.
For any forum related questions, please contact either the Forum Chairs or CREFC’s
Rohit Narayanan (
RNarayanan@crefc.org).