Fed Closes Out Legacy CMBS Program

NEW YORK CITY-The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday it had settled $857 million in loan requests for the March subscription round in its legacy CMBS program through TALF. The March round marks the sunset of the legacy CMBS program through the New York Fed; lending against newly issued commercial mortgage securities runs through June 30.

In all, the New York Fed has settled approximately $12.3 billion in loan requests for legacy CMBS since the securities were added to the TALF program last June, according to data from the bank. The March tally of settled requests was the second lowest since the program began, and also marked the widest monthly gap by far—$402 million—between requested and settled amounts. By contrast, the gaps between requests and settlements for the January and February rounds were slightly more than $120 million per month.

On its website, the New York Fed notes that it reserves the right to reject loan requests. The securities that were rejected fell short of either “the explicit requirements specified for legacy CMBS in the TALF program terms and conditions” or Fed’s risk assessment of the legacy CMBS, “including an assessment of whether the stress value of the legacy CMBS exceeded the requested loan amount,” according to the bank.