WASHINGTON, DC-On Tuesday with little fanfare or formality Fannie Mae dropped a lollapalooza on the market: it released a list of commercial-mortgage bonds issued before the financial market crisis that is plans to sell on Thursday.

The holdings are significant – some $2.2 billion – making it not only the largest transfer of risk in a year, but as Deutsche Bank noted in a client note, also the first widely distributed list to include multifamily bonds.

Fannie Mae is taking this step for a simple reason, Kimberly Johnson, Fannie Mae Senior Vice President of Multifamily Capital Markets, tells GlobeSt.com – it wants to make sure it meets its goals under the conservatorship scorecard. "We are working under the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency," she says. (Earlier this year the FHFA directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to sell off at least 5% of their illiquid holdings in 2013.)

Other than that, Johnson declined to comment further on the pending sale. "We are waiting for investors to do their due diligence and put in bids, so we don't want to say much about it until then."

Deutsche Bank, in its note, did a quick but deep dive into the offering. All together, there are about 17 bonds in the list with an average balance of $129 million; each is 42% of the entire class balance.

What is also notable about the transaction is that these are -- as Bloomberg describes them in its report -- boom-era CMBS. The securities are linked to apartment loans from 2006 and 2007, a source told the publication.

Deutsche Bank unearthed more information about the portfolio: it reports that 11 of the bonds have not been downgraded by any rating agency and the lowest rated bond is the A1A from GG10 which carries a BBB rating from S&P. Expect an impact on the market as a result of this sale, it also warned – albeit a limited one.

"The market has softened over the last week and the size and uniqueness of this list will put further pressure on spreads…" it concluded.

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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.