Clockwise from top left: Bryan McDonnell, Melissa Farrell, Sara Trybus, and Marcia Diaz.
Bryan McDonnell, Melissa Farrell, Marcia Diaz and Sara Trybus
Managing director and head of U.S. debt and chair of global debt; managing director and head of U.S. debt originations; managing director and head of U.S. core debt; and managing director and chief credit officer at PGIM Real Estate
Last year's rank: 24
PGIM Real Estate weathered a stormy market in 2023 and seized on plenty of lending opportunities in the private debt fund space.
While PGIM’s $11 billion of loan originations last year was off from the on-bank lender’s 2022 total of $15 billion, its average loan size increased as many large banking institutions scaled back amid rising interest rates.
“With the banks on the sidelines it gave us a lot of opportunities, and one area was the larger loan space,” Melissa Farrell said. “The banks were out and they weren’t syndicating, so we were able to go in and do several large transactions.”
Farrell noted that PGIM was able to capitalize on larger loans above $100 million last year given that this market segment was underserved, with a number of banks on the lending sidelines. The majority of PGIM’s core lending business (61 percent), however, was in the middle-market range between $30 million and $100 million for 2023, according to Farrell.
One of PGIM’s larger deals last year involved a $455 million fixed-rate loan from its core lending strategy in September 2023 to Alere Property Group to refinance an eight-building industrial portfolio in the Los Angeles region.
Another large transaction executed in September 2023 by PGIM through its core-plus debt strategy was a $333 million floating-rate loan to GLP Capital Partners for the acquisition of three industrial properties in Southern California’s Inland Empire.
On the agency lending front, PGIM executed a $259 million Fanne Mae-backed credit facility for The Sobrato Organization secured by six multifamily properties on the West Coast totaling 1,141 units.
“No one likes to see production go down, but in a year where transaction flow was off by about 50 percent from the year prior I felt like we actually may have gained in market share, especially in our core business,” Farrell said.
Fifty-one percent of PGIM’s 2023 loan originations consisted of multifamily deals, with industrial comprising 30 percent. PGIM was also active lending in the self-storage sector, which accounted for 8 percent of its volume.
