David Nass

UBS had a strong year by operating in “every part of the credit cycle and every part of the rate cycle,” said David Nass, noting the company’s preference for deep diversification.

“We have developed six distinct businesses on our real estate finance platform, and that’s a combination of balance sheet and CMBS opportunities as well as our back leverage business with our CRE warehouse,” said Nass. “Then we developed an advisory business to help borrowers that need help for overlevered assets that are trapped in CMBS trusts and on balance sheets of banks.”

UBS’s transaction volume in 2025 included $1.7 billion in CMBS — which breaks down to $1.1 billion conduit and $600,000 SASB — as well as balance sheet figures of $3.5 billion in commercial real estate and $5 billion in mortgage finance. The company also executed two CRE CLOs. 

Nass makes note of one significant internal change the company implemented in January 2026, which was moving the company’s 18-person CRE lending business from UBS’s wealth management division to Nass’s real estate finance division, with the initiative being to originate loans for wealth management clients.

“Now, within my group, we’re originating loans for balance sheet for both institutional and wealth-management clients,” said Nass. “We have more flexibility now when the capital markets are more volatile and provide a little less certainty for execution. It’s given us the opportunity to provide a closing for a borrower that was relying on a CMBS exit, but now we can do it on balance sheet. It’s a new feather in our cap that allows us to work around volatile capital markets.”

One of the company’s major opportunities of late was serving as the lead financial adviser for Sycamore Partners’ taking drugstore chain Walgreens private in August 2025.

“We provided the bridge there, and then took out some of that exposure through SASB CMBS. So we were really happy about that trade,” said Nass. “It was great for the firm, and a great opportunity for us to work closely with Sycamore and provide creative financing solutions for them.”