Robert Merck, Gary Otten and Sara Queen
Head of Real Estate and Agricultural Finance; Head of Real Estate Debt Strategies; Head of Real Estate Equity at MetLife Investment Management
Last year's rank: 16
Even though MetLife Investment Management fell a few places this year, that’s by no means an indictment of the strength of its debt and equity platforms.
Gary Otten, now in his 25th year at MetLife, leads one of the industry’s most active and dependable life company commercial real estate lenders, which originated $8.5 billion in debt last year across 137 mortgage loans. As of the end of 2020, MetLife sported a commercial mortgage loan portfolio valued at $74 billion.
Advisory and borrowing sources consistently rave about its staying power and loyalty despite the turbulence.
Otten said his lending group, which sports 13 offices globally, never paused in response to the pandemic, adding that MetLife’s “ability to provide certainty of execution when it was not uncommon for deals to be tabled or retraded” was something that set it apart. “We were able to rely on our strong underwriting experience and risk management across cycles to create loan structures that helped borrowers appropriately manage their business, while also providing important protection on the lending side.” He said his group also closed 30 deals in 30 days or less from the time of application.
A lack of retail and hotel originations contributed to its dip in volume, but the lender’s industrial originations grew, and it was as active in multifamily and office as it was in 2019. Otten, though, said his division is strategizing for its leap back into the hotel scene, where it expects to be focused on limited and select service hotels in the near term.
Notable closings include a $218 million loan provided to Blackstone to recapitalize an industrial portfolio with assets in and around Chicago and Milwaukee that were acquired in an all-cash deal. The group also refinanced LMC-Lennar’s existing construction loan on 17th & Broadway Apartments in Oakland, Calif., with a $115 million loan.
It provided acquisition loans on Starwood Capital Group’s Marshfield Business Park in Maryland ($108 million) and Longfellow Real Estate Partners’ purchase of office and life sciences property Durham ID in Durham, N.C.
Durham ID was “a highly structured mortgage loan, whereby a portion of the traditional office space will be converted to life science space in an effort to generate further income and drive occupancy at the property level,” Otten said. “[Our] creative loan structure included a future funding element to reimburse for conversion capital spent, as well as an earnout feature that is subject to future debt-yield targets.”
MetLife Investment Management is looking at a very bright 2021 in both the debt and equity sides of the business, as it just recently hired Sara Queen away from Mapletree Investments to oversee its $33 billion real estate equity portfolio.
The company has also ramped up its diversity and inclusion initiatives, including a Real Estate Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council; a new Black professionals network; an expanded college recruiting program; and it will soon launch an externship program to target minority students. MetLife has also partnered with Girls Who Invest to help provide female students with career development opportunities in asset management.—M.B.
