Blackstone Pauses $1.3B Commercial Mortgage Debt Sale
Blackstone's plan to sell a private-label bond has encountered a wrinkle: a market teeming with debt issuance.
The real estate wing of Blackstone shelved a planned $1.3B bond sale last week, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The bond was backed by debt linked to 60 industrial properties and was being sold by a group of banks, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp.
But the plug was pulled when the bond spread grew too wide, sources told Bloomberg. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Barclays were also involved in the sale.
The proceeds from the sell-off were expected to be used to refinance about $714M of existing debt as well as return more than $182M of equity to a Blackstone affiliate. Sources told Bloomberg the sale was opportunistic and not linked to upcoming loan maturities.
Blackstone has dominated the refinancing of commercial mortgage-backed securities debt in 2024, to the tune of about $15B so far.
But it faces a crowded market. Debt linked to commercial borrowers has made up two-thirds of this year’s issuance so far. This time last year, it made up about 40%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Issuance of private-label deals like the one that was paused sat at $42.8B as of Thursday, up more than 180% over last year, Bloomberg reported.
