Jason Kollander
Partner and head of real estate credit at BDT & MSD Partners
Last year's rank: 34
BDT & MSD Partners picked its spots over the last year while navigating borrower clients through an up-and-down market.
The alternative lender, which formed in 2023 through the merger of BDT & Company and MSD Partners, originated $1.75 billion of lending volume across 12 deals for the one-year period ending March 1, 2025. While loan activity was down from the $2.75 billion executed from March 1, 2023, to March 1, 2024, BDT & MSD Partners deployed capital across multiple classes with 40 percent of its deal flow from repeat borrowers.
“We were targeted, we were surgical, and we really followed our playbook of being a capital structure solutions provider to our roster of repeat borrowers who are in our network,” Jason Kollander said. “There are definitely examples when we will be involved in broker processes, but if you can originate proprietary deal flow in this market that is a real special formula for success.”
One of BDT & MSD’s signature transactions from the past year involved a $273 million construction loan in November to a joint venture between PPG Development and Witkoff to develop the Shell Bay Hotel & Residences project in Hallandale Beach, Fla.
A month later, BDT & MSD executed a $285 million construction loan for GFP Real Estate and TPG Real Estate’s planned conversion of a 609,203-square-foot office building at 222 Broadway in Manhattan into a 798-unit luxury apartment building.
The firm also closed a $270 million construction loan to Douglaston Development in June 2024 to build a 35-story condominium tower at 175 East 82nd Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
In the first quarter of 2025, BDT & MSD launched a new credit vehicle aimed at lower-risk commercial real estate investments with assets that have lower than 50 percent loan-to-value ratios (LTVs).
“It has given us an opportunity to deploy what we think are really attractive investments in capital at low LTVs covered by contracted cash flow but earning attractive spreads for us and our investors,” Kollander said. “There are dozens of deals that we’re seeing today that fit this profile.”
