CANNES-One of the last sessions at MIPIM here might be the most telling in terms of the state of the debt markets. It offered a comparison of the US and European debt situations and offered some projections as to where the European market can go.

Steve Renna of CREFC pointed out that, stateside, CMBS is chugging back at a good clip. Some 18.5% of US mortgage debt last year was in the form of CMBS (roughly half was through banks).

Matt Bornstein of Deutsche Bank Securities, one of the largest CMBS issuers, put the potential for CMBS at $100 billion this year (at the end of Q1, he indicated, it was already at $26 billion.)

The market, of course, in Europe is different and experiencing different pressures, and CMBS, which is gaining traction here, might see a $10 billion market this year. As opposed to the US, “CMBS is only 5 to 7% of the market,” said Citigroup's Wesley Barnes.

The opportunities are rich in Europe for US lenders, and life companies and other institutions are finding that out. There's an $82-billion lending gap, Barnes said, a massive crater left by some of the largest lenders on the Continent going belly up.

“That means opportunity,” he said. “Until that gap gets plugged in, everything has to be repriced or it won't get financed.” If the banks can't do it, opportunistic lenders will.

Already “US lenders are poking around in Ireland and in Germany, said Jim McCaffrey of Eastdil Secured, which is spreading its wings more broadly into Europe.

The local banking sector has to mend itself, Barnes stressed. But as GlobeSt.com reported from MIPIM Thursday, that will be a work in progress over the next few years. “CMBS in Europe,” Barnes said, “needs to more closely resemble its US counterpart.”

In the meantime, McCaffery for one says he's taking it “one day at a time, one deal at a time. What's needed are real deals.”