Sector developments and company hires

Regions boosts CRE capability
Regions Bank has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Sabal Capital Partners, one of the top originators of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac small-balance commercial real estate loans with a growing presence in non-agency CMBS loan origination. Regions plans to incorporate Sabal into its growing real estate capital markets division.

Based in Irvine, California, Sabal is a vertically integrated platform that has originated nearly US$6bn in financing across the US since inception and maintains a current servicing portfolio of nearly US$5bn. The company serves clients through its state-of-the-art SNAP platform, a proprietary tool developed by Sabal to optimise the lending and communications processes with clients and Sabal’s investor base.

Regions will maintain Sabal’s flagship offices in Irvine and Pasadena, California, as well as New York City. When combined with Regions real estate capital markets’ existing production offices, the combined platform will have 20 production offices nationwide.

Regions’ agreement to acquire Sabal Capital Partners is specific to the lending and servicing segments of Sabal’s business and does not include Sabal’s investment management business, which will remain with the sellers, including ceo and founder Pat Jackson, and investment funds managed by Stone Point Capital. Jackson and Sabal’s cfo Mike Wilhelms will remain with the investment management business while other members of Sabal’s leadership team will join Regions.

Regions’ acquisition of Sabal Capital Partners is expected to close in 4Q21, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

In other news…

EMEA
Serdar Özdemir has joined fintech Revolut as senior structured funding manager. He was previously head of structured asset distribution - portfolio management at Rabobank, which he joined in August 2014. Before that, he worked in credit and ABS structuring at RBS.

Private ABS fund closed
LibreMax Capital has closed its fifth drawdown vehicle, LibreMax Structured Opportunities Partners I, with total capital commitments of approximately US$225m. The fund targets investments that have unconventional asset pools or are created in less liquid forms and will focus primarily on private ABS across the consumer, residential and commercial credit sectors.

LibreMax believes that private lending affords an attractive opportunity to generate uncorrelated returns. By leveraging its market relationships, asset expertise and proprietary technological infrastructure, the firm says it is uniquely positioned to provide bespoke capital solutions to help companies fund future growth or meet liquidity needs in a post-Covid world.

Since 2012, LibreMax has managed four drawdown vehicles totaling over US$1.4bn in committed capital as part of its diversified platform of alternative and long-only strategies.