Hilary Provinse
Executive vice president for production and capital markets at Berkadia
Last year's rank: 43
As a private company owned by public parents — Berkshire Hathaway and Jeffries Financial Group formed the firm out of their 2009 marriage — Berkadia is one of the fortunate few mortgage originators not beset by the pressures of public markets and the threat of mercurial investors.
That freedom helped Berkadia’s mortgage banking business originate $21.7 billion in 1,157 loans and complete $8.7 billion in investment sales transactions in 2023 — numbers that are surely enough to make Warren Buffett smile and thank his lucky stars.
“Berkadia was thrilled with its ultimate performance despite the market being down,” said Hilary Provinse. “We rose out of the ashes of the last great financial crisis — that was when the company was founded — and so we look at market disruptions like this as an opportunity for growth.”
As liquidity dried up, Berkadia invested in the relationships it formed with the big three government-sponsored enterprises: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Department Housing and Urban Development. The firm’s 2023 lending volume stood at $6.9 billion with Freddie, $5.4 billion with Fannie, and $1.2 billion with HUD, for a total agency lending volume of $13.5 billion.
“We had invested pretty heavily in the growth of those lending platforms over the last decade, and I think that was realized last year,” said Provinse. “The GSEs obviously picked up market share as other lenders pulled out, and Berkadia was able to capitalize on our strength there to serve our clients.”
Provinse noted that the average deal size for Berkadia’s originations floated around $20 million per loan, and that this midsize speciality played perfectly into the GSEs bread and butter: workforce housing and affordable housing liquidity. “We are the best at serving that market and being able to execute for hundreds of different clients,” she said. “Our smallest loan was probably $1 million and our largest loan was probably $100 million, and we do every loan size in between.”
Another feather in Berkadia’s cap: its growing life insurance company business. The firm did $2 billion in originations in that sector last year, and serves as the principal correspondent for 40 different life insurance companies.
“You have to figure out what deals are appropriate for which lenders, especially when there’s a lack of liquidity, but luckily we have access to all those different lending partners and we do a good job of feeding the appropriate business to the appropriate deal,” explained Provinse.
