CMBS

The European securitisation market was flooded with CMBS this week as two more deals entered the pipeline to replace Business Mortgage Finance No 6 and Stability CMBS 2007-1, which were priced this week.

New York-based Marathon Real Estate Finance, which was formed to invest in mortgages and other property debt, plans to raise as much as $200 million in an initial public offering and will use the proceeds to start a portfolio of loans, according to Bloomberg. The firm plans to originate, acquire and invest in commercial real estate finance transactions, including whole mortgages, mezzanine loans, commercial mortgage-backed securities and other investment vehicles, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Marathon Real Estate is managed by New York-based Marathon Asset Management, a real estate and debt management company that was formed in 1998 and has about $20 billion in assets.

An AUD$250 million ($208 million) Australian commercial mortgage-backed securities deal that securitizes loans originated by New South Wales-based lender IMB is in the market.

Price guidance was issued for three very different CMBS in the market this week, giving investors a chance to pick and choose.

Overall European commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) issuance in Europe will continue its strong trajectory into the New Year, with German property loans, particularly multi-family, dominating the loan pools, according to Commercial Property News. This year should also see an increase in the regular contribution of loans from France, Spain, Italy and even further East. “We'll see the first loans from Central and Eastern Europe creeping into CMBS pools in 2007,” says Clive Bull, director of the European commercial real estate group at Deutsche Bank in London. “The economies of the countries are quite small--not a lot of assets to support decent-sized loans, but there are enough brand new retail and office loans to mix into pools of loans from other jurisdictions,” he says.

Goldman Sachs is planning a €1,105 billion ($1.4 billion) true-sale European commercial mortgage-backed securitization containing collateral originated from Germany and Holland.

Only one of the several CMBS deals in the market has price guidance so far — IKB Industriebank’s Eu909m synthetic CMBS, Stability CMBS 2007-1, led by Deutsche Bank.