NEW YORK CITY-Cantor Fitzgerald LP is preparing its first CMBS offering, a $1-billion securitization scheduled to launch in March, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. In an interview at the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council conference in Washington, DC, Anthony Orso, CEO of Cantor Commercial Real Estate, which was formed this past September, said the issue would be marketed in partnership with Wells Fargo.

About 20% of the loans contributed by Cantor to the CMBS package will be backed by apartment complexes, Orso told Bloomberg. He said “speed and certainty of execution” enabled Cantor to compete with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for multifamily loans.

With at least half a dozen other large-scale securitizations in the works, the CMBS market is beginning 2011 on pace to easily surpass the $11.6 billion it reached in 2010. Although that’s a far cry from the record $234-billion CMBS market of 2007, it’s still about five times the amount of CMBS sold during 2009.

Estimates of how large the CMBS market will grow this year have varied. Moody’s Investors Service said last week it projected a $37-billion market, while JPMorgan Chase has predicted $45 billion. Other estimates have climbed as high as $50 billion for the year.

GlobeSt.com’s calls to Cantor and Wells Fargo were not returned by deadline. Click here for the complete Bloomberg article.