Axar Capital, Morning Calm Launch New CRE Lending Platform

The new endeavor is starting out with approximately $250 million in capital.

Axar Capital Management and Morning Calm Management have launched Morning Axe Management, a real estate lending platform that will originate senior loans and mezzanine loans for the middle market. The company will invest and manage discretionary capital on behalf of life companies and other institutional investors. Morning Axe will establish headquarter operations in Des Moines, IA with future origination teams spread across the country.

Morning Calm is a vertically integrated real estate investment and management platform with a focus on special situation investing. Axar is a value-oriented investment firm focused on highly flexible, opportunistic investing in the corporate middle market. Since their respective inceptions, Morning Calm and Axar have deployed over $5 billion of capital, including real estate investments in target property sectors.

The MAM platform launches with access to approximately $250 million of capital via a separately managed account. MAM has also engaged Raymond James to support additional institutional fund raising.