Meridian, Barings Unveil NewPoint Real Estate Capital
The new platform is focused on pioneering a “fresh” approach to multifamily financing.
Meridian Capital Group and Baring unveiled the name and gave more details about their multifamily financing venture called NewPoint Real Estate Capital.
David Brickman will lead the new platform as CEO. Brickman joins NewPoint from Freddie Mac, where he was the CEO and increased annual production from $16 billion in 2010 to nearly $80 billion in 2018. Jeff Lee will serve as president of NewPoint, leaving a position as EVP of multifamily lending at Beech Street Capital, a firm that he co-founded in 2009 and sold to Capital One in 2013.
In 2020, Meridian closed $40 billion of financing including $28 billion in multifamily financing, and the firm’s chairman and CEO Ralph Herzka and president Yoni Goodman is charting the NewPoint’s growth trajectory.
The new platform is joining an extremely active sector. A recent report notes that multifamily transaction volume topped $138 billion last year and hit $32 billion in the first quarter of 2021, making the asset class the most liquid among all commercial real estate property types. Closed-end fund closings targeting multi-housing assets have totaled $68.4 billion since 2016.
Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta and Phoenix are the top most liquid markets in the US, supplanting the historical mainstays of Los Angeles and New York. Capital momentum is also increasingly targeting garden-style and mid-rise assets in less dense locations, according to JLL. In addition, the report also notes that there is strong appetite on both sides of the lending table. First quarter multifamily mortgage borrowing totaled $51.8 billion, with agency lenders capturing 62% of loan originations.