CMBS making a comeback

U.S. banks are now beginning to expand their commercial mortgage-backed securities business, two years after the financial crisis slowed down that process, and triggering a wave of industry hiring, Reuter’s reported. Several banks have hired lenders
to focus on making new commercial real estate loans to package into bonds, including companies such as Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, Jefferies and Deutsche Bank. Analysts and bankers have long worried that commercial real estate, like home mortgages, would crater and upset the U.S. economy. Bankers and advisers who specialize in CMBS said the sector may never fully recover to the peak of $237 billion in originations in 2007. Slightly more than $1 billion in CMBS deals have been completed this year. [Reuter’s]