Bisnow/Jon Banister
Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker and Starwood CEO Barry Sternlicht at a 2018 Bisnow event.
Starwood Property Trust is preparing to ramp up the pace of its investments in the coming year.
A series of capital markets transactions it completed in December lowered its borrowing costs and generated $783M in new capital it can deploy. The company has a “robust pipeline” of investments planned through the first quarter of 2025, Starwood CEO Barry Sternlicht said in a press release.
“With our heightened level of investment activity, we are pleased to have had the opportunity to again increase our liquidity with these transactions, while reducing our cost of funds and extending the tenor of our debt,” Starwood Property Trust President Jeffrey DiModica said in the release.
If all goes according to plan, Starwood will repay unsecured notes this month and in March and have no corporate debt maturities until 2026.
Starwood has “seen a thawing in CRE capital markets that has created increased lending opportunities for our low-leverage, diversified business,” Sternlicht said in the release.
Starwood isn’t alone in anticipating clearer skies ahead. A report published in late October by PwC and the Urban Land Institute predicted that commercial real estate is on the cusp of a new cycle.
Some investors expressed confidence that the market had reached its bottom, and real estate executives surveyed in the report were more optimistic about the coming year than they were at the same time last year.