WASHINGTON, DC-Last week Walker & Dunlop announced that Brian Casey will join the company's Proprietary Capital Group with a start date for Thursday. Casey, as many in Washington's capital markets community know, was responsible for MetLife's domestic and international commercial whole loan lending operation. At W&D, Casey will be responsible for managing the company's proprietary fixed rate and bridge loan funds, which are both currently in development.

GlobeSt.com caught up with Casey's soon-to-be new boss, Willy Walker, to find out more about these products.

GlobeSt.com: Tell me about your plans for Casey.

Walker: We have discussed previously that we have a bridge financing program at W&D, and we are looking to raise additional capital there. That is one of the programs that Brian would run. In fact, the raising of a fixed-rate, long-term separate account will be his job one.

GlobeSt.com: Tell me what this will mean for your customers? In other words, where will this product fit in among your offerings and what the market already offers?

Walker: We see a need in marketplace for non-agency, fixed-rate capital and that can either be in the form of a higher leveraged loan that a conduit would likely provide, or a longer-term loan that pension fund would likely provide. Right now companies can get straight refinancing fairly easily but if someone is looking to fund and acquisition and rehab, that calls for a bridge product.

GlobeSt.com: When do you see W&D offering these products?

Walker: We haven't given a specific guidance for that but we do hope to have some programs up and running in Q3.

GlobeSt.com: And the separate account fund – what is the target for that?

Walker: In general, in our guidance we have talked about providing $10 billion in financing overall. I will say that if we don't raise a couple of hundred million dollars for this fund, it wouldn't be worth it for a company of our size.

GlobeSt.com: Is this new initiative W&D's way of diversifying?

Walker: At end of day we are trying to create sources and forms of capital that our clients need and want. If someone looks at what we are doing and says 'they have broader product offering' great, but reason is clients want it.