CIM founders (left to right): Richard Ressler, Shaul Kuba and Avi Shemesh

From the December issue: The principals of the Los Angeles-based private equity firm the CIM Group know a thing or two about military strategy — two of them served as Israeli paratroopers before immigrating to the United States and teaming with a former Drexel Burnham executive to found CIM.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that CIM entered Manhattan with a real estate equivalent of “shock and awe.”
Virtually unknown to most local industry players until recently, CIM parachuted into Midtown in late 2009 — with a speed and decisiveness that surprised many of those still cautiously hoarding cash — and targeted distressed assets in prime locations.
Two years later, the firm has multiple beachheads around the city, and has established itself as a major New York City player, likely for the long haul.

[more]

From left: Steven Kantor of Cantor Fitzgerald, the interior of unit 82 at Trump World Tower and the exterior of the builidng

Steven Kantor, executive managing director of global financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, may be trading up at Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza. The executive appears to have purchased a 2,476-square-foot condominium unit at the tower for $5 million, according to public records filed with the city last week, just a few months after he listed another unit at the building.

Kantor’s new unit, #82, was initially listed with the Corcoran Group’s Robb Saar in July for $5.35 million, according to data from Streeteasy.com and went into contract at the end of October. The three-bedroom unit is larger than Kantor and wife Mindy’s current two-bedroom apartment in the building, #75D.  [more]

As Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick prepares to finalize the purchase of brokerage Newmark Knight Frank, he is also seeking out ways in which he can use his knowledge of bond trading to gain advantage in the real estate game. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lutnick is considering the possibilities for developing a market in property derivatives pegged to rents as a means for landlords and tenants to hedge against surprise market volatility.

“You can hedge orange juice and you can hedge corn,” Lutnick said, “but real estate you can’t. I think property derivatives will become a common part of tenants’ and landords’ transactions in commercial real estate.” [more]

1. Cantor Fitzgerald completes first loan securitization since entering the commercial mortgage backed securities market
[Crain's]
2. Buyers don’t fancy living Brooklyn style in Kip’s Bay
[Curbed]
3. TV show “Selling New York” renewed for two more seasons
[Twitter]
4. It’s nearly move-in time for buyers at 1280 Fifth Avenue in East Harlem
[Curbed]
5. Donald Trump backs out of celebrity pace car driving, calling it inappropriate
[Crain's]
6. Real estate courses at Trump University weren’t so hot
[SF Chronicle]
7. Lower East Side residents pitch plan for Gulick Park
[DNAinfo]
8. Jewish Home Lifecare is relocating the elderly
[DNAinfo]
9. Outdoor space aplenty at 114 East 30th Street
[Post]

Chris Christie

From the April issue: If Chris Christie’s rise to political prominence on the national stage was swift and unexpected, his ascent as a real estate force has been even more so. A litigator by trade, the 48-year-old New Jersey governor arrived in Trenton last year with few official real estate ties to speak of, save for the Mendham Township home he owns with wife Mary Pat, a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald, and a longtime friendship with Hampshire Real Estate Companies founder Jon Hanson.

But less than two years later, Christie’s almost devout fiscal conservatism has catapulted him — perhaps accidentally — into one of the most powerful real estate roles the state has seen in decades.

Taking the reins early on the state’s most high-stakes projects, Christie killed a long-planned $9.8 billion commuter tunnel to New York City, seized control of Atlantic City’s ailing casino district, and passed landmark legislation to cap further growth on the highest property taxes in the nation. It remains to be seen how history will treat his now notoriously aggressive leadership style, but there’s no question that real estate will remember him, for better or worse. [more]

LNR Property is angling to invest in a $600 million pool of Cantor Fitzgerald commercial property loans in what would be its first debt purchase since the revival of the commercial mortgage-backed securities market that began last year, sources told Bloomberg News. Florida-based LNR would purchase the most junior portion of the pool, known as the b-piece, which is riskier but with higher yields. Cantor Fitzgerald said in a regulatory filing this week that it may issue up to $1 billion in commercial-mortgage bonds as it builds up its new real estate practice, Cantor Commercial Real Estate. [Bloomberg]

Wells Fargo is shoring up its staffers on the commercial mortgage-backed securities front in anticipation of a resurgence of the market, bank representatives told Bloomberg news. The CMBS market was previously led by Wachovia, which was acquired by Wells Fargo in 2008 for $12.7 billion after it reported more than $2.1 billion in CMBS-related losses in 2007 and 2008. Among Wachovia’s soured deals was the $7.9 billion bond that included financing for the 2006 purchased of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village — the largest CMBS deal in history. The buyers handed over the keys to the complex earlier this year after defaulting on their mortgage. But that’s not deterring Wells Fargo, which has added more than 20 bankers and support employees over the past three months. The new staffers are helping to increase loan originations and bundle them into CMBS, said Ed Blakely, the bank’s head of commercial mortgage lending and servicing. And Wells Fargo isn’t alone. Australian investment bank Macquerie Group announced last month that it is targeting the U.S. CMBS market with a new group, and New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald said earlier this month that it plans to originate and securitize $5 billion in loans over the course of the next year. [Bloomberg]

[more]

Anthony Orso

Cantor Fitzgerald said it launched a new real estate lending venture with Los Angeles-based CIM Group, planning [more]

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]

Iris Cantor — philanthropist and widow of Cantor Fitzgerald founder
Bernie Cantor — just closed on a townhouse at 11 East 74th Street,
between Madison and Fifth avenues, according to the Post. Cantor bought
the 10,800-square-foot home for $18.13 million. The seven-bedroom,
10-bath townhouse was first listed for $35 million in 2007. Cantor is
also trying to sell two of her other properties. Her 35,000-square-foot
mansion in Bel Air, Calif., which has its own hair salon, is on the
market for $53 million, and a penthouse at 110 Central Park South,
which Cantor has never lived in, is being marketed for $11.9 million. [more]