Mark Walter is currently the "main character” in high finance, a designation no one wants. Federal prosecutors and the SEC are examining whether his life insurers properly disclosed how much of their money was lent to his other businesses; one of them, Delaware Life, restated its related-party holdings from ≈$1.4B to $17B+. (No charges have been filed.) He’s facing a class-action suit from policyholders, is selling his stake in Chelsea FC ⚽, and is in the midst of selling the Lakers to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner. Amid the fallout, funds managed by Walter’s firm, Guggenheim Partners, bled $2.4B in September alone.

For us in CRE, Guggenheim is a shop of historical significance. Its real estate platform has originated $18B+ across over 600 deals since 2010, funding many marquee players and projects. Its bigger legacy may be the firms it gave rise to: Guggenheim alums are sprinkled across all corners of the CRE capital markets, AUM Gobbling ™️ at impressive rates. Some of them have built similar machines to what Walter did, insurance balance sheets that feed lending shops that are lighting up capstacks everywhere. 👇

A message from Pensford’s JP Conklin: On the day I was born, the 10yr Treasury was 7.38%. On the day I turned five, it was 15.38% and mortgage rates hit their all time high at 18.63%. When I turned ten, the T10 was 7.24%. The day I got my driver’s license, it was 6.71%. Day 1 in Basic Training was 6.62%. On the day Bill Cosby gave the commencement speech at my UNC graduation, 3.73%. On the day I started Pensford, 3.10%. On Pensford’s 10th anniversary…2.49%. Maybe that 40yr bond bull run influences my opinions that rates are more likely to move lower over time.

This cycle has been worse for CRE than the GFC. Maybe not the rest of the economy, but just CRE. I’ve had a lot of friends simply leave the industry over the last few years because there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. Read on here.

Eldridge: Top 🐶: Todd Boehly. Prez: Tony Minella. CRE guys: John Cole, Matthew Rosenfeld, Matteo Milan

Boehly ran Guggenheim as president until ‘15, when he left w/ a handful of its businesses, including insurer Security Benefit, which he’d bought for Guggenheim in ‘10. That insurer is still the anchor of Eldridge (~$75B AUM), which now bills itself as “an asset management and insurance holding company.” The CRE lending arm is Cain’s old credit team, moved under Eldridge in 2025 and run by Cole. In August, Eldridge did a $278M refi for Portman and Blackstone’s Atlanta office tower. In New York, it did a $250M loan for Vanbarton’s office-to-resi conversion of the Archdiocese of New York’s old HQ on First Ave, and a $155M construction loan for Legion’s (SY whisperer Victor Sigoura) West Chelsea condo at 550 W 21st. But its most significant CRE play is through its affiliated vehicle, Cain. 👇

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Cain: Top 🐶🐶: Jonathan Goldstein & Boehly. CRE guys: Larry Green, Eric Poretsky, Arvi Luoma

Goldstein ran European RE at Guggenheim before co-founding Cain Hoy in 2014 w/ Boehly and Henry Silverman, w/ backing from Guggenheim. Rudy Sahay and Thomas Christopoul, both of whom we’ll get to shortly, were sr. partners there too, which makes Cain Hoy the original clubhouse of the Guggenheim RE mafia. Cain made its bones as a lender: In ‘19 it issued $450M in mezz for Vlad Doronin’s Crown condo conversion (ties w/ Vlad have deepened over the years). In ‘23 it made a $240M construction loan for Related’s Casa Bella in Miami, and it bought $1.2B of New York CRE loans off PacWest’s books. With much of the credit team now at Eldridge, Cain has reinvented itself as one of the more swashbuckling sponsors in today’s market: It’s the lead developer on the mega-mega One Beverly Hills, an endlessly fascinating project that has one of the more intriguing capstacks we’ve come across – and among the greatest backstories, too. (We broke it all down on the pod last year.) Cain landed $4.3B in construction financing for the project this spring.

PS: Boehly (Goldstein is in his consortium) is selling his Chelsea FC stakes alongside Walter.

Aquarian: Promote Insiders: Read on for the full rundown at the end of this newsletter, plus a graphic that brings it all together 🔒 👇

Blackstone is lining up a $3.5B refi of the AIR Communities portfolio, the marquee acquisition it did in ‘24 that gave the market permission to think big again. BX is in talks w/ a GS-led syndicate on a CMBS loan backed by ≈30 properties in the portfolio, per CMA. BX will look to pocket a tidy $320M in the process – in the matter of such complex, lucrative refis, the firm is 🐐ed. Via its record $30.4B BREX fund, BX paid $10B in an all-cash deal in spring ‘24 to do a take-private of the 76-property, 27K+ unit portfolio that spans 10 states. It was the highest-profile deal in its “reacceleration” thesis at the time, and also represented the beginning of a shift in the firm’s property-management strategy: The megalandlord began upping the ante on its PM unit LivCor, and started inhousing much of its management – delivering groups such as Bell Partners a body blow.