Last Updated: June 1, 2010 12:50pm ET
Beltway Buzz By Erika Morphy

Life's Appetite for Real Estate, CMBS Grows

By Erika Morphy
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Insurance companies have never been ones to spell out their allocations for commercial real estate. Usually real estate developers and investment managers are left to make their best guesses at the start of the year as to what insurance companies will be doing, both in terms of lending and in what they will be investing. By now it's pretty clear that life insurance are not just lending defensively to real estate this year -- that is, lending just to keep their existing portfolios solvent -- but are actively expanding their business. The latest proof point: Bernard Winograd, Prudential Financial's executive vice president for U.S. businesses. According to comments he made in a conference call, the insurance company is happy to be a lender to real estate again. "We feel good about the upside opportunity for valuations relative to the downside risk." It's not just Prudential. As Bloomberg reports, MetLife said last month that prices have bottomed out while valuations are starting to rise. "Smart capital is starting to queue up," Principal Chief Executive Officer Larry Zimpleman said in an April 27 interview. "There are a lot of new funds being formed by investors who are looking to invest and buy either loan portfolios or buildings." Perhaps of even greater interest are the comments made by Primerica CFO Alison Rand in another interview with Bloomberg. The insurer is planning to invest at least some of its portfolio in CMBS, she says. Supply of new CMBS, that is, has been sparse for obvious reasons, one of which is lack of demand. Whether Rand was discussing new or existing CMBS is unclear, but either way it signals growing intereste by the buy side for these securities.

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