Commercial Banks Staying Competitive with CMBS

LOS ANGELES—Although CMBS was predicted to be the major financing theme of the year, commercial banks are staying very competitive, according to Gary M. Tenzer, principal and managing director at George Smith Partners. Last year, CMBS racked about $83 billion in volume, and anticipated doing $125 to $150 billion this year.

“My guess is that they are not going to make it,” Tenzer tells GlobeSt.com. “One of the big stories about CMBS this year is how much business they are losing to commercial banks. CMBS would have you think that it was going to be a CMBS year, and CMBS is doing great. They will probably do better than last year, but the commercial banks have really been doing a lot of on book stuff very aggressively.” Tenzer is itching to expand on this dichotomy when he leads the CMBS market panel at the upcoming RealShare Investment and Finance conference on June 25 at the California Club in Downtown Los Angeles.