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FDIC Taps Newmark to Sell $60B of Signature Bank Loans
The FDIC has hired Newmark Group to sell about $60 billion of Signature Bank loans, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Signature collapsed earlier this month after its customers rushed to pull deposits, and held $35.7 billion in real estate loans at the end of 2022, accounting for nearly half of its total loans at the time, according to FDIC data.
The Manhattan-based bank was especially active in New York City, where it issued the largest number of commercial real-estate mortgages since Jan. 1, 2020, the WSJ reported. Signature lent out $13.4 billion against New York City buildings with loan amounts of $5 million or more during that period. When New York Community Bancorp acquired Signature’s assets following the collapse, it left most of Signature’s CRE debt behind.
Office loans represented about 5% of the total for Signature CRE loans, according to an analysis by KBW Research. Most of the remaining loans were for rental apartment buildings.
The WSJ reported that real estate executives and analysts expect the sale of Signature’s debt to help establish new price levels for loans, resetting values lower than where many banks list them on their balance sheets.
“It will provide a data point for everyone in the market trying to gauge where values are,” Matthew Anderson, managing director at Trepp, told the WSJ. He added that any buyer of Signature loans would likely pay distressed prices.
Photo: Signature Bank branch following the collapse, with camera crew in front. Photo credit: SWinxy/Wikipedia.
- ◦Sale/Acquisition
