Brian Brooks and Ralph Herzka

Meridian Capital Group flipped the script from the last few years and in 2025 rebounded from its bans by federal mortgage market giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. 

“Last year was the year that Meridian re-entered the market at scale,” CEO Brian Brooks said. Over the year ending March 1, 2026, the company provided mortgage brokerage and advisory services for 900 loans across 34 states, totaling $11.6 billion in financing.

In June the brokerage powerhouse closed its first Freddie Mac-backed loan since its ban was lifted in October 2024, a $173.1 million deal originated by NewPoint Real Estate Capital on behalf of Rubin Schron’s Cammeby’s International to refinance the Monterey, a luxury apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

“When we re-entered the agency market with a trophy property of that size and scale, that said to the world that we are back in a big way,” Brooks said.

In another standout deal of the year, Meridian arranged a $154.5 million construction loan from Benefit Street Partners for Pearlstone Partners to develop the Belvedere, a 158-condo development in Downtown Austin.

Looking forward, Meridian will continue to grow its cornerstone focus on health care. But what it really hopes to do in 2026 is create a flywheel effect among the three pistons driving its business — debt capital markets, investment sales and retail leasing — and ensure they feed into each other.

To that end, over the last year Meridian’s investment sales team brokered 52 transactions totaling $913 million, and its retail leasing division negotiated 325 transactions totaling over 675,000 square feet.

“We work really hard to provide our clients with really good solutions,” Ralph Herzka said. Meridian’s never taken its eye off the ball, he said, and the firm will “continue to perform for our clients.”