Starwood buys RE loan manager LNR in $1B deal

LNR Property, the nation’s largest manager of distressed commercial real estate loans, has been sold to Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Property in a $1.05 billion deal, Bloomberg News reported. Starwood Property, the largest commercial-mortgage REIT, has agreed to pay $856 million for the majority of LNR’s businesses, which include its U.S. special servicing unit — which oversees more than 1,100 delinquent securitized mortgages — and 50 percent of its stake in Auction.com. Sternlicht’s investment firm, Starwood Capital will buy LNR’s U.S. property-development unit and the other half of the Auction.com interest for $197 million. [more]