Mathew Wambua and Michael Dury

Merchants Capital generated over $7 billion in transaction volume in 2025, including $3.5 billion on the balance sheet, $3 billion in agency/Federal Housing Administration loans, $600 million in brokered agency/FHA, and $700 million in equity.

The company completed its largest Freddie Mac Q Series transaction to date in 2025 — a $373.3 million securitization of 18 stabilized multifamily mortgage loans comprising 3,047 multifamily units.   

A few of the firm’s larger individual transactions included $368.3 million to finance 1,272 affordable housing units at the Manhattanville Houses in West Harlem, and over $316 million to finance Phase 2 of Alafia, a mixed-use affordable development in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

Given that Merchants executed $6.89 billion in debt and equity deals in 2023 followed by a touch over $7 billion in 2024, CEO Michael Dury described last year as one that found the company holding steady amid a turbulent global environment.

“We leaned into our core business, which is workforce and affordable,” said Dury. “I wouldn’t say it’s been a year of growth or a year of contraction. I think we’ve continued to execute on the things we’ve done for years, and we still clear a good amount of business in a very challenging environment.”

Mathew Wambua noted that between falling prices and a slower, less active M&A market, fewer deals were being executed across the entire industry.

Given all that, Wambua sees Merchants’ ability to put $7 billion into the market, primarily focused on income-restricted affordable housing, as “an amazing accomplishment,” especially given “how difficult the market was, the interest rate environment, and the ambiguity underpinning so much of the landscape that everybody was dealing with.

“We look at our primary competitors, and, for any number of reasons, they will jump in and jump out,” Wambua said of the market. “They’ll have monster years, then they will retract and disappear in totality. That is not us. [The year we had was] an incredible feat because our objective is to be a top player in the fields in which we compete at all times, irrespective of the conditions. We achieve that in large part because this is just primarily what we do.”