When The Promote published its Nursing Home Power Roster over the winter, Joel (Yoely) Landau was a shoo-in. The Allure Group founder & Satmar pezzonovante ™ had taken a stake in distressed SNF giant Genesis (through a $50M debt investment via an entity called ReGen Healthcare – lots of fun 🐰 🕳 in this story) in ‘21, and in ‘22 partnered w/ Lipa (Leo) Friedman on a $3B+ deal for DigitalBridge’s wellness infra portfolio. There’s now more action on the Genesis front: the firm has filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy, per Skilled Nursing News, and has a preliminary deal to be acquired by ReGen, affiliated w/ the Landau-controlled PE vehicle Pinta Capital. Landau’s vying to take full control through a stalking-horse 🐴 bid, which in simple terms means it’ll set a floor purchase price for the bankruptcy auction. Genesis is down to about 175 SNF facilities, having already divested a bunch in ‘21 to a tasty triumvirate: longtime investor Welltower, the Landau & Friedman-controlled Aurora Health Network, & Sam Stein’s Peace Capital 🕊 . TBH, the capstack & JV maneuvering in the SNF space can make trad CRE feel like it’s on training wheels 🛺

Joe Moinian is at risk of his losing his Fifth Avenue office tower. Special servicer LNR alleges (h/t PincusCo) the mogul defaulted on his $310M loan secured by 535-545 Fifth, a primo Grand Central-adjacent location. Moinian has owned the joint since ‘06, part of a $270M move to buy up the block. Together, the properties offer just over 600K sf, so depending on how you slice the loss factor (non New Yorkers, read this), that puts Moinian’s loan basis at between $475-500/ 🦶. So now he’s got to wrestle w/ the Q that a lot of his peers – far richer and a tad poorer – are grappling with: Kick in more equity and dream of a redevelopment down the road, or walk away?

A lot of fascinating examples of owners in the hood opting to stay in and fight it out. At 500 Fifth, sources said Mexican banking heir Moisés Cosío decided to kick in some cash to placate his lenders and keep the 730K sf tower, which had $200M in CMBS on it. German insurance giant Munich Re took a similar approach last year at nearby 330 Madison, opting to pay off a $500M Wells loan in full, and it’s had a lot of luck w/ leasing.

Apollo and KKR did it through acquisitions. Blackstone’s doing it through partnerships. But the endgame is the same: use insurance equity to juice private-credit deals. We’re speaking of the just-announced alliance BX struck w/ British financial firm Legal & General, in which BX will originate loan deals for L&G’s annuities business. The JV is eyeing a $20B book over the next 5Y, in a strategy that’s right out of the Apollo-Athene playbook – let’s once again steal from friend of The Promote Hunter, who broke this down in Feb.

To address the origination constraint, Apollo has used the equity that “falls out” of the insurance structure, then raises outside capital in the traditional private equity model to capitalize, purchase, or otherwise finance captive debt origination platforms. Apollo, in effect, leverages their insurance equity via the private equity structure to earn fees and carried interest on the debt those platforms are originating. The portion of that debt origination that qualifies as investment grade can be fed back into the top of the insurance capital stack, dropping down new equity that is used to equitize further debt origination.

Blackstone has prev. struck similar partnerships w/ Corebridge & Resolution Life. At the target deal volume, Bloomberg estimates the new L&G deal could result in $400M in fee revenue for Blackstone, “or a 6% upside to 2024 fees.” 🧃🧃

Dan Sacks, the rainmaker who was Fannie’s #1 loan originator in ‘23, is out at Greystone, The Promote has learned – and the circumstances of his departure remain fuzzy. Sacks & his lieutenant Avi Kozlowski (also gone, off the site) were volume monsters, propelling Greystone to🥉 in the Fannie charts that year. But over the past several months, there’s been chatter of Greystone shuffling some business to other dealmakers. The broader agency-lending fracas at Greystone is important context here: In recent months, Fannie had revoked the firm’s Performance Differentiation privileges – think of it like Disneyland’s Lightning Lane 🐭 ; Meridian alum Shaya Ackerman bounced less than a year after he started, amid increasing agency scrutiny on deals done by his close collaborator Donny Rosenberg (RedRock principal, HUD rainmaker, son to Greystone founder & CEO Stephen). This May, the firm hired Fannie alum Michael Keeney to be its chief underwriter for agency lending. The sitch is being closely watched x the industry, likely also by the suits at BlackRock, which has an affordable lending partnership w/ the firm. And zooming out, we’re obviously talking during a v in-your-face crackdown on fraud at the agencies themselves 🔍

Where did the “big landlord BAD” 👻 public perception come from? How can the media – both the mainstream pubs and trade rags – do a better job of covering critical industry issues and not just follow the herd? And what do landlords need to be thinking about to ensure they get a fair shake in the press – and by extension, in the political rooms that matter? Hiten sat down w/ prominent multifamily economist Jay Parsons on “The Rent Roll” podcast to talk through it all. We focused on rental housing here given Jay’s audience (national multifamily machers) but the takeaways can be applied x CRE. Listen here on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your pods – the interview starts at the 20m mark. (NB: I made a bris joke, but the punchline got cut – fitting I suppose ✂ )

Unrelated PSA for the press: Noticing some hot takes out there about how the Related-Saudi deal is a sign that investors are betting on New York despite Zohran etc. etc… Given that the deal went down MORE THAN A YEAR AGO, it has less than nothing to do w/ NYC’s current political climate.