BETHESDA, MD—Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker and CFO Steve Theobald told shareholders last month that the first group of loans in the company's CMBS platform, established last November, was moving towards securitization. Right on schedule, the company announced this week that it has contributed its first $58 million of collateral in multifamily and retail loans for an upcoming securitization with Wells Fargo.

The securitization has priced and is expected to close on Sept. 29.

W&D's CMBS platform is on track to contribute $200 million in collateral to future securitizations by the end of 2014, it also said.

The news was included in W&D's announcement that it had added three originators to its CMBS team.

Geoff Smith, based in the company's New York City office, has joined as managing director and head of origination for Walker & Dunlop's conduit & high yield platform. Paul Jankovsky, has joined the team as senior vice president based out of Walker & Dunlop's Dallas office. Kimberly Riordan has joined the group as vice president, also based out of the New York office. All three will originate for clients nationwide.

W&D's objective is to originate $1 billion in conduit loans during the first year—a goal that should happen by next June if not before, Walker said during the earnings call in August.

W&D launched the platform in part to diversify away from strictly multifamily operations and because it wanted to service a wider range of borrowing needs. The platform is apparently working as planned, based on one example Walker provided during the call. "We quoted a three-property, multifamily deal in June for execution with the GSEs. The borrower requested more proceeds than an agency loan could provide. So we quoted the deal for our conduit."

Then, in the process of quoting the deal for the conduit, the borrower asked W&D to look at three transitional properties that needed bridge financing, which also wound up being funded. "A year ago we would have lost the deal after providing the GSE quotes," Walker said. "Today, due to our new CMBS conduit and scaled balance sheet lending operation, we financed these six properties totaling $67 million."

Instant Insights /

W&D Contributes $58M for CMBS with Wells Fargo

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