Stacey Berger.
Honorable Mention: Stacey Berger
Executive Vice President at Midland Loan Services, a division of PNC Real Estate
While this list features the biggest power players in finance for 2019, its postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic spawned new realities that needed to be taken into account.
Together, CMBS servicers were the dam taming the flood of thousands of inquiries and relief requests from borrowers who were seeking concessions or modifications on their existing loans when the pandemic took hold in March and sent the CMBS world into a free fall.
Stacey Berger is a co-head of the largest third-party servicer in operation today, Midland Loan Services, with $702 billion in master and primary servicing (Wells Fargo Bank is second at $700 billion), according to information from the Mortgage Bankers Association. It sports the country’s largest special-servicing portfolio — around 8,500 loans, totaling $153 billion — and the second largest on the master-servicing side — around 20,800 loans representing $350 billion, Berger told CO earlier this year. It was also the No. 1 special servicer for U.S. CMBS in 2019, at more than $22.6 billion across 54 deals.
Midland as a master servicer — basically the first line of defense before a loan is transferred to the special servicer for a modification or even a default — typically handles a couple dozen requests a month, Berger said.
“In the last month, we’re up to 1,800 separate requests for relief related to coronavirus, a $25.5 billion cumulative balance,” Berger told CO in mid-April. “It’s been an enormously challenging process to inventory all these requests that come in — 38 percent hospitality, 31 percent retail, 8 percent multifamily and office was 10 percent.”
He joined Midland in 1990, where he’s stayed for the last 30 years, so Berger has seen a crisis or two in his day. Fortuitously, Midland reinforced itself for a crisis scenario at the end of last year.
“As part of a strategic planning process, we came up with a staffing plan for our performing loan, asset management and special servicing groups based on a scenario that essentially looked like 2008 to 2012, which we thought was an extreme case,” Berger said. “The basic premise was: If we had to staff up to handle that volume, to handle it over a 24-to-26-month period, what would it look like with staffing and how would it happen?”
Berger said Midland literally accelerated its 27-to-36-month timeline to just 27 to 36 days, and began bulking up its staff at the beginning of the year for a possible downturn scenario.
“But we in no way expected this activity,” Berger said.—M.B.
