James Flaum and Kwasi Benneh

Morgan Stanley solidified itself in 2024 as a leading CMBS lender during a rebound year for the securitization markets.

The investment banking giant boosted its securitization activity by three times its 2023 levels in a year which saw it execute $16.4 billion of originations in the U.S. and $19.5 billion globally.

“The last year was a pretty conducive market for activity, and the CMBS market recovered very well,” said Kwasi Benneh. “By the end of the year we started to really transition into some of the asset classes that were pretty much not financeable at the beginning of the year, so it was a pretty good transitional year.” 

Morgan Stanley’s active CMBS deal activity during the past year included originating a $1.2 billion refinance of RFR’s Seagram Building in February. 

James Flaum and Benneh’s team also closed a $460 million CMBS loan in May 2024 for a joint venture between private equity firm Henderson Park and Pyramid Global Hospitality to acquire the Arizona Biltmore hotel and resort in Phoenix from Blackstone Real Estate for $705 million.

In addition to being busy with executing deals, Morgan Stanley was also active over the past year largely completing a number of needed modications of loans on its balance sheet held over from the COVID-19 pandemic. That progress positioned it to focus more on new deals. 

Both Flaum and Benneh have been teammates at Morgan Stanley for more than 20 years, giving them the ability to respond to borrower client needs while pivoting between CMBS and balance sheet lending depending on market conditions. 

“Consistency, speed and certainty is our hallmark,” Flaum said.