In an effort to remain one of the key players in the commercial mortgage-backed securities market, Kansas City-based Midland Loan Services Inc. has appointed R. Scott Shackelford to the position of senior vice president and managing counsel.
"What they're doing is, they are going to be bringing their legal counsel inside and adding more resources inside, so it should streamline the process and make it more efficient," said a spokesman for the company.
Shackelford will be responsible for all of Midland's corporate affairs, including origination, securitizations, servicing and asset management for the company. He previously worked at the law firm of Morrison & Hecker, where he was a partner specializing in real estate servicing and securitization transactions.
The spokesman described the company as having a "very substantial securitization department, with close to 400 employees." Midland only focuses on securitizations and the funding and securitizing of commercial mortgage loans, he added.
"They've grown from essentially zero, nothing in 1992, to over $45 billion in CMBS loan-servicing assignments," the source said. "They are well established in terms of commercial mortgage securitization. Scott is an integral part to the growth of Midland over the years from a legal perspective and this will only add to the efficiencies."
Tim Mazzeti, executive vice president of the company, explained why
Shackelford was the obvious choice for the position and just how the company structures its transactions.
"Scott's primary role is more of an in-house counsel," said Mazzetti. "We tend not to get directly involved with actually structuring our transactions. Most of that is being done by whatever Wall Street firm that we hire to help us underwrite and take the transaction public."
A good portion of Midland's business involves the origination, securitization, and servicing of commercial mortgage-backed securities, Mazzetti explained.
"Given his [Shackelford] extensive experience in negotiating these transactions - more importantly, almost exclusively representing us as our side third-party counsel - this made him a natural to come work with us as managing counsel on all of our affairs," said Mazzeti.
