Boutique investment banks are expanding or popping up anew to fill a void in capital created by the real estate crash that left property owners and investors without many options for the impending $1.5 trillion in real estate loans expected to mature over the next five years. Firms like Moelis, Cantor Fitzgerald and Broadpoint Gleacher Securities Group are carving out a niche in helping their clients find a way out of bad debt by restructuring loans, finding capital and selling off assets. Newcomers to the market say their lack of “baggage” of the kind plaguing big institutions like Credit Suisse and others who were intimately involved in subprime lending, coupled with their small size, will prove advantageous. Many of the boutique firms are staffed with ex-Lehmanites, former Wachovia bankers, or other refugees of past main players, though, and these new firms are quickly expanding. Moelis has hired 100 new staffers over the past year, many of whom will help with its new real estate services, and brokerage CB Richard Ellis recently expanded its investment banking business, based in London, to America. [Crain’s]

Broadpoint Gleacher Securities Group has signed a 15-year lease on 75,000 square feet at 1290 Avenue of the Americas at 51st Street, owned by Vornado Realty Trust, and is looking to expand beyond that space in the future. The asking rent was between $50 and $60 per square foot. In the new location, the financial services firm will have a trading floor that will be connected to its office functions on the floor below by a central reception area. The group will sublease its current office space at One Penn Plaza at 49th Street and Madison Avenue.