This year will be critical because about $270 billion in commercial mortgages held by banks are set to expire—the highest figure on record. Most of these loans are held by banks with less than $250 billion in assets.
Delinquency Rate
The delinquency rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities increased 0.18 percentage point in February to 3.12%, the second-largest increase since June 2020.
Airfares
Airlines say red-hot travel demand is driving higher prices. The average U.S. round-trip ticket price booked in February was $571, up 23% from a year earlier and 8% from January.
Understaffed
Despite a recent jump in the hospitality sector’s hiring, hotels and restaurants are still understaffed. The accommodation and food-services sector had nearly 1.5 million job openings as of January.
Blackstone Cvent
Blackstone has made a big bet acquiring meetings and events technology provider Cvent for $4.6 billion. A fully-owned unit of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority will become a significant minority investor along with Blackstone in the transaction.
Tiger Global
Tiger Global marked down the value of its investments in private companies by about 33% across its venture-capital funds in 2022. The markdowns erased $23 billion in value from Tiger’s giant holdings of startups around the globe.
Signature Bank
Word that landlords were withdrawing cash spread rapidly in the close-knit community of New York’s real-estate families, prompting others to follow suit. Regulators closed Signature Bank on Sunday in one of the biggest bank failures in U.S. history. Signature built its business in part through lending to New York developers and owners of multifamily buildings, office towers, retail property and other commercial real estate.
Retail Real Estate
Retail was the only real-estate sector where sales grew last year compared with 2021. Sales activity, which totaled $85.7 billion in 2022, was mostly front-loaded in the first half of the year, with transactions declining as interest rates rose.
Leveraged Buyout
Apollo Global Management Inc. has agreed to acquire chemical company Univar Solutions Inc. for $8.1 billion including debt, in one of the biggest recent leveraged buyouts.
Renter Trend
The number of renter households making $150,000 or more a year rose by 87% between 2016 and 2021 to more than 3 million.