Freddie Announces $1 Billion Commercial Mortgage Bond Deal

Freddie Mac (FRE) announced a $1 billion commercial mortgage bond deal backed by multifamily loans to be sold Oct. 7.

This follows the previous such deal in June when the government sponsored enterprise sold $1.06 billion of these bonds, as part of a shift in its strategy from holding these loans in its investment portfolio to using them to raise capital to make fresh loans.

In a way, these are the only new commercial mortgage bonds to be issued over the past 12 months. Commercial real estate was hit with a double whammy from banks shrinking the number of loans made to finance these deals, and by the economic downturn that has prompted companies to shrink their size and consumers to reduce their spending.

However, Freddie and its sibling, Fannie Mae (FNM) continue to lend to buyers of apartment and multifamily buildings.

Freddie started packing these loans into securities as a way to improve its liquidity so that it can continue to support at least one corner of commercial real estate.

The current deal offers K certificates, as these securities are called, that is backed by 46 multifamily mortgages that are guaranteed by Freddie. Deutsche Bank Securities and Goldman Sachs (GS) are the lead managers.

Freddie's previous offering sold $1.06 billion of these securities with the Class A coupon at 2.225%, and Class C coupon at 5.105%.

The mortgage finance company, since its May offering, has built a pipeline of $3 billion of loans that can be securitized. The current offering is from this set.

"We expect offerings going forward on at least a quarterly basis, which will enable Freddie Mac to continue to provide even greater liquidity to the multifamily housing market," said David Brickman, vice president of multifamily and CMBS capital markets at Freddie.

-By Prabha Natarajan, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2468; [e-mail]