Even as commercial mortgage-backed securities players coalesced in New York for the CMSA meeting last week, the beginnings of a flurry of summer market activity started, with a very successful pricing for the Salomon Smith Barney/Greenwich Capital $729 million conduit, and the launching of PNC's $802 million conduit as well as a $900 million issue from Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Inc.
42p1.593"The Salomon deal traded extremely well," said one source familiar with the conduit. "A lot of investors had both PNC and the Salomon/Greenwich deal on their desk and focused on Salomon."
The five-year piece on the SSB deal went at 30 over, pegged to swaps, and the 10-year went at 42 over, which was nearly spot-on to price talk.
"The positive thing about this deal is that Salomon did get GMAC, the special servicer, to be the sub buyer, and the double-B-plus tranches through the unrated were fully distributed," said a source knowledgeable about the deal. "This occurred, whereas a lot of the time you get double-B's still out there looking for a home. The fact that these were placed is a very big plus."
"The fact that the double-B's were gone gives investors an added layer of comfort that the pool has been scrubbed and there are lots of eyes looking at the loans," added another CMBS player.
There was apparently a good cross-section of insurance companies and money managers looking at the deal, and the deal priced on schedule, sources said. Of course, it helped that there weren't four or five deals in the market last week, mainly because of the CMSA convention.
Coming up soon in the CMBS market: a $900 million deal from Key Commercial, Bridger Commercial Funding and Salomon Smith Barney, a $1 billion offering from Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan and LaSalle Bank, a $1 billion deal from Credit Suisse First Boston, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and National Cooperative Bank, and a $1.1 billion deal by Lehman Brothers and UBS Warburg.
