Warren de Haan, Kyle Jeffers and Tony Fineman

2025 was one heck of a year for ACORE Capital. 

In November, insurance giant Tokio Marine acquired a majority stake in the firm, granting ACORE discretion over its $10 billion commercial real estate debt portfolio. The transaction represented something of a full-circle moment for the firm as Delphi Financial Group, a subsidiary of Tokio Marine, was an investor in ACORE’s launch in 2015. Since then, ACORE has grown from $1.6 billion in capital commitments to $18.3 billion in assets under management. 

“I think it’s a complete differentiator from anyone else in the market,” CEO Warren de Haan said. “Berskshire Hathaway recently took a $1.8 billion position in Tokio Marine, which further strengthens that cornerstone of what we set out to do. The number of opportunities that we at ACORE have had to partner with, sell an interest in, or otherwise, in the company to various other investment companies has been significant. But we’re now in an extraordinarily unique and great place, with the largest insurance company in Japan as an extremely stable partner to be in business with.” 

Additionally, “there’s more competitors in the market, but few have the discretion over capital we have,” de Haan said. “We have the ability to make decisions on literally tens of billions of capital.” 

ACORE originated or made material modifications to 138 loans totaling $10.8 billion in the year ending March 31, 2026, and signed up 16 deals totaling $1.5 billion in the first quarter alone. Roughly 40 percent of closed loans were with repeat borrowers. 

Many of ACORE’s transactions were impressive but off record. Public biggies included a $160 million refinance for MDH Partners on a 10-property industrial portfolio. 

“Coming off of `23 and `24, `25 was nothing short of phenomenal for us,” Tony Fineman said. “Our origination volume tripled from the prior year, and we did a bunch of deals with a bunch of important sponsors.” 

ACORE also launched its debut CRE CLO, ACORE 2026-FL1, a $1.1 billion managed CRE CLO. The initial collateral pool consists of 22 loans secured primarily by multifamily and industrial properties. 

“It was a natural evolution of the company,” Kyle Jeffers said. “We looked at the capital markets and how they were treating CLOs, and the markets were very attractive. The levels were really good, the pricing was good, and so we thought the time was right to diversify our business.” 

ACORE did an old-school road show for the CRE CLO debut. “We put on our suits and ties, we met with the bond investors, and what was fascinating about that is we’d go into the meeting and people would say, ‘Oh yeah, ACORE, we know you guys.’ Then we’d sit down at the table and start speaking, and they’d go, ‘Actually, we don’t know anything about you — tell us your story.’ ” 

The fruits of those meetings resulted in “excellent treatment in the way the bonds priced,” Jeffers said. “Overall, it was a hugely successful deal, and we will continue to be issuers in the CLO market throughout the years.”  

“We spent years producing billions and billions of dollars of bonds in our past,” Chief Operating Officer Boyd Fellows said. “This CRE CLO is a $1 billion transaction, but it felt like a baby step to the beginning of tens of billions of similar transactions over the next decade. Kyle ran around and got warm, giant embraces from all the biggest household names that exist. We’re so happy to be here, and this whole experience felt great.”