MetLife’s Sizeable Mortgage Mandate

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Lou Jug, MetLife

MetLife Real Estate Investors, the third-party investment management arm of MetLife Inc., has received a mandate from an unnamed reinsurance company to invest $500 million in U.S. CRE loans, MetLife announced late last week. MetLife REI reportedly “will originate and service variable and fixed-rate loans across various property types” for the reinsurer through a separately managed account.

The deal was closed earlier this year.

MetLife also announced that last November it had closed a similar commercial mortgage participation mandate for a U.S. life insurer to invest $300 million. That deal had not been previously disclosed, a MetLife spokesperson confirmed to Commercial Property Executive.

“This latest mandate demonstrates that our clients can rely on MetLife to originate loans in institutional-quality office, industrial, multi-family, retail and hotel assets in major markets throughout the United States. We also have the capability to lend on a fixed and floating basis, depending on what is best for the client,” Lou Jug, head of investor services for MetLife Real Estate Investors, told CPE.

Until recently, MetLife REI had total commitments of more than $6 billion in separately managed accounts from five insurance companies and one bank. With these two additional mandates, that dollar figure is now up to $6.8 billion, according to the MetLife spokesperson.

The platform currently has $1.3 billion in assets under management, consisting of first mortgages, senior mezzanine loans, fixed-rate (5–30 years) and floating-rate (3–10 years), loan sizes from $20 million to $500 million, for office, multi-family, retail, industrial and hotel properties.

“We certainly consider investments beyond these general parameters, but we do so on a loan-by-loan basis,” the MetLife spokesperson added.