LOS ANGELES—On the debt side, a number of Asian banks haveincreased their lending activity throughout Southern California.Banks, such as Royal Business Bank and Evertrust, have been makinga large push to expand their presence and attract business from theChinese American communities. That is according to DanielMense, the director of Ness Holdings Inc., a locally baseddiversified development company. We exclusively chatted with Menseon how the landscape of buyers have evolved, on consolidation ofmid-sized banks, the international investment community and howsmall investment shops have diversified their portfolio in order tostay competitive.

GlobeSt.com: How has the landscape of buyers evolvedover the last several years, since the recovery, and what impacthas it had on smaller firms?

Daniel Mense: We are seeing greaterdemand for smaller deals, particularly in the commercial sector insecondary and tertiary markets, which the larger investment firmshave been targeting. Over the last year (ending March 31, 2014),smaller deals have experienced the most significant year-over-yearprice gain of 17.2%--the strongest since the recovery began,according to CoStar. This data strongly supports an increasedappetite among larger investment firms for smaller deals innon-core markets. To further highlight this point, in the lastyear, we have transacted several deals in Southern California withmajor investment firms, ranging from $5 to $15 million in dealsize. This is the first time that we've seen such interest fornon-core assets by more institutional-oriented investors.