BETHESDA, MD-Walker & Dunlop said Friday it is acquiring CWCapital in a cash-and-stock deal for $220 million. The deal, structured as an $80-million cash payment and approximately $140 million of W&D stock, is expected to close with 90 to 120 days, subject to stockholder and regulatory approval.
Once it does, Walker & Dunlop will have scaled up considerably—creating one of the largest commercial real estate lenders in the country. “The overall reach of the company will grow dramatically because of this deal, from its geographic footprint to overall origination volumes,” Willy Walker, CEO of Walker & Dunlop, tells GlobeSt.com.
Certainly the acquisition will give W&D a significant boost up the league tables, creating the second largest multifamily lender in the US and the eight largest commercial real estate lender, with $7.7 billion in CRE loan originations in 2011. It will also have an aggregate servicing portfolio that exceeds $33.7 billion.
Its new heft will make the company that much more important to the GSEs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the companies that access their financial products, Walker says. “We will be able to go to customers and say, ‘if you want to work with them, you should work with us.’”
The acquisition will also push W&D closer to other goals on its defined strategic plan including expanding its brokerage activities, expanding into other loan categories such as industrial, retail, hospitality and office, bulking up its proprietary capital sources and potentially raising a mortgage REIT and debt fund. “The scale of the deal will allow us to do more things from a proprietary product standpoint than we could have done alone,” Walker says. He declined to discuss timing of some of these items, such as the potential mortgage REIT or debt fund.
CWCapital originated $3.7 billion of loans in 2011. It services $16.8 billion in commercial mortgages, employs 180 people. Altogether, it has closed over $20 billion in commercial real estate transactions since 1994. Michael Berman, CEO of CWCapital, will take a senior leadership role at Walker & Dunlop.
Continue Reading for Free
Register and gain access to:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
