PHOENIX-Berkadia Commercial Mortgage LLC, headquartered in Horsham, PA, has expanded its service offering through its acquisition of Hendricks & Partners, the national multifamily property commercial real estate firm, headquartered here. Effective immediately, Hendricks & Partners – and its 37 nationwide offices -- will operate under the name Hendricks-Berkadia which, according to the press release detailing the change, will be "another major business unit next to Berkadia's loan servicing, mortgage origination and proprietary lending operations."

Current Hendricks & Partners CEO Don Hendricks will join Berkadia's Executive Committee as the CEO of Hendricks-Berkadia and Executive Vice President of Berkadia.  Hendricks-Berkadia will continue to be headquartered in Phoenix.

“We are thrilled to be joining the team at Berkadia and bring aboard our broad array of investment sales and research capabilities to their borrower and investor client bases,” Hendricks says in the press release announcement. “Combining Hendricks & Partners and Berkadia, the best sponsored company in the mortgage banking industry, enables us to build a first-class commercial real estate platform offering a wide array of capital solutions to multifamily owners and investors nationwide.”

Berkadia CEO Hugh Frater notes that the reason for the acquisition is to broaden the company's services to current and future clients. "We are pleased to welcome Don and the rest of the Hendricks team to our Berkadia family," he comments, in a prepared statement. "In this new partnership we see tremendous opportunities to not only expand our existing client relationships with the offer of additional services, but also to build new relationships in the commercial real estate industry.”

Berkadia was formed as a joint venture between Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Leucadia National Corp. as a commercial real estate lender and a special, master and primarily servicer.  "Since the company was formed back in 2009, Berkadia has been able to steadily grow its strength and presence in the commercial real estate industry," Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett in a prepared announcement. "We see Berkadia's acquisition of Hendricks as another significant step in the growth of their multifamily expertise and services."

Representatives from Hendricks & Partners and Berkadia Commercial Mortgage were not immediately available for comment. An update on this news will follow.