CMBS

Voit Real Estate Services hired Darren Tappen as a commercial real estate broker. Tappen specializes in industrial, office and land acquisition, disposition and development in the Phoenix metropolitan area, according to a press statement.

Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley have structured a $355 million deal backed by billboard collateral, the first of its kind to be rated by Moody’s Investors Service. The deal securitizes 10,172 billboard faces, associated with 4,982 outdoor advertising structures and related permits, licenses, ground leases and the property on which the billboards stand, according to a Moody’s pre-sale report. In the 12 months through last September the portfolio of billboards brought in $98 million in revenue, generating an operating margin of 61%. Minnesota-based AOA Management Company Limited Partnership will manage the billboards for the deal’s issuer. The agency gave preliminary ratings of ‘A(sf)’ for the $254 million in A notes, ‘Ba2(sf)’ for the $44 million in B notes, and ‘B3(sf)’ for the $57 million in C notes.

Ireland is the latest country to test the resiliency of European securitization structures against sovereign risk.

The lack of new European CMBS issuance means that the number of loans securitized in European CMBS transactions is shrinking, said Fitch Ratings in a report.

Delinquences on commercial real estate loan CDOs declined slightly in October as more lenders stretched out the maturities of loans backing these securities, according to the latest index results from Fitch Ratings.

As the chief executive of Royal Bank of Canada's U.S. wealth management business, John Taft works in Minneapolis and reports to Toronto. But now, as a leading voice of the securities industry lobby, he will be devoting much more of his time to Washington.

Despite the primary markets somewhat opening and previously retained offerings being placed in 2010, the overhang of retained securitized debt stayed significant, according to the quarterly report, according to a report from the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) and the European Securitization Forum (ESF).

Regulators are close to the final version of the implementation of minimum due diligence requirements under the European Capital Requirements Directive Rule 122A.

Venable hired five lawyers to its real estate group, led by three partners based in Washington DC, New York and Baltimore. The group was formerly at WilmerHale and has a combined 42 years of experience.

Cole Real Estate Investments hired Eric Costa as director in the asset management and dispositions group as announced by Marc Nemer, the firm's president.