CMBS

Private investment firm Starwood Capital Group, Greenwich, Conn., has purchased a nonperforming commercial real estate (CRE)loan portfolio with an outstanding principal balance of $157 million from an undisclosed Midwest regional bank.

There is a pickup in CMBS issuance at the start of this year, which falls in line with expectations of a busier new-issue CMBS market for 2011.

The U.S. CMBS delinquency rate rose again in December with the percentage of loans 30 or more days delinquent, in foreclosure or REO climbing 27 basis points to 9.20%.

Eversheds has appointed structured finance and derivatives lawyer Kingsley Ong as partner in its Hong Kong banking and finance team.

Real estate services and investment firm Grubb & Ellis Co. has predicted a slow recovery in the leasing market for all property types in the coming year.

Though the Basel II process to write new international capital standards lingered for nearly a decade, its successor has come a remarkably long way in just the past year.

Recent attacks on securitization have centered on its legal soundness.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is looking to build on AEGON USA Realty Advisors commercial real estate lending expertise to source new lending opportunities for its securitization program.

RBS Securities, the investment banking and brokerage unit of Royal Bank of Scotland, is looking to add trading and sales professionals and strategists specializing in Latin American markets, according to senior fixed-income officials.

Faced with the prospect of refinancing nearly $1.4 trillion of U.S. commercial real estate debt in the next four years, real estate investors remain skeptical, despite the halting recovery of capital markets in recent months, whether CMBS can restart with sufficient volume to finance the recovery of the commercial property markets.