McLEAN, VA-Freddie Mac has released its 50th multifamily mortgage-backed Structured Pass-Through Certificates (or K Certificates) since the program's launch in 2009. For those keeping count, this issuance make a total of more than $60 billion the GSE has sold in multifamily mortgages for securitization.

For this latest offering—Freddie Mac's 13th this year--the company expects to issue approximately $1.3 billion in K Certificates, which are expected to price on or about August 8, 2013, and settle on or about August 27, 2013. The certificates are backed by 88 recently-originated multifamily mortgages and are guaranteed by Freddie Mac. They include two senior principal and interest classes, one senior interest only class and one junior interest only class.

They will be offered to the market by a syndicate of dealers led by Barclays Capital Inc. and J. P. Morgan Securities LLC as co-lead managers and joint bookrunners. CastleOak Securities, L.P., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Wells Fargo Securities, LLC will serve as co-managers.

In many ways, the most notable feature about this particular offering is the benchmark it attained for the GSE--50 transactions is an achievement of which the company is proud, Mitch Resnick, vice president of Freddie Mac Multifamily, tells GlobeSt.com. "It has been a pretty good run, especially considering they were only introduced in 2009." GlobeSt.com spoke with Resnick about the program's brief but robust history and how he expects to see it further evolve.

GlobeSt.com: Remind what it was like in 2009, introducing these securities to a shell-shocked market.

Resnick: When the transactions first launched in 2009 they were a new product launching into a non-existent marketplace. CMBS had all but come to a halt; the market didn't see anything even close to a CMBS issuance until we came to the market with our deal. We had to do a lot of education aimed at different investor types. But it was received well eventually and has gone from being a new product to now being benchmark product for agency CMBS.

GlobeSt.com: The K-structure has gone through a number of iterations since then, especially in the last few years. How and why?

Resnick: Some of it was a factor of being a new product; a lot of it has been in response to investor demand. For example, the first time we did one of these transactions it had four or five different classes. Now, as you know, we are doing just two senior classes that are guaranteed.

Another adjustment we made--in the very beginning we didn't have ratings that were monitored. What we would do is get 'point in time ratings' in which the rating agency would effectively say that 'at this moment or at this point in time this security is worth X' but it wouldn't monitor the security beyond that. Now we use regular ratings, which makes for an easier sell and has allowed us to expand the investor base."

GlobeSt.com: You've gotten more innovative, especially in the last year or so. Can you explain some of the thinking behind those deals?

Resnick: Well, we've done floating rate deals, although not many because the demand for that paper is low. We began selling mezz classes cut off at the 10% subordination level. That was in response to investor demand. On the production side we have seen interest for mostly 10-year paper but lately with this sell off and steepening of the yield curve we are seeing more borrowers looking for seven year and five year money to keep their debt service as low as possible.

GlobeSt.com: These deals are getting larger in size as well, correct?

Resnick: Yes, our transactions have gotten a bit bigger in size--we have gone from about $1 billion to close to $1.78 billion and that has been in response to investors' desire to have larger and more liquid senior classes.

GlobeSt.com: Do you have new structures you are considering?

Resnick: We have done single sponsor transactions and are looking to do more. In fact we are working another single sponsor transaction right now. But that is not new. We are always considering different types of structures to meet market demand. For example, if demand shifted enough we would offer three or four part tranches. We could try to look at different types of floating rate structures, but again we don't have a lot of floating rate product because of the lack of demand.