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Commercial real estate death watch – Capmark
What do you get when you put a U.S. automaker, a leveraged buyout and commercial real estate together – a soon-to-be bankrupt company. Caroline Humer of Reuters reports that that Capmark – formerly the commercial real estate business of GM financing arm GMAC – is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, with the final blow coming possibly by the end of next week?
The company, which owns a bank that will continue to operate while it is in court, is in negotiations with lenders, bondholders and the Federal Deposit Insurance Company that will result in a filing by the end of October at the latest, the source said.
They are working on details of a debt-for-equity swap that will take place to bring the company back out of bankruptcy, he said. It is not certain how long the court process could take.
Those that swooped in and bought the unit in March of 2006 in an LBO may be out of luck if the company files for bankruptcy.
Cash M&A still lifeless
Bond sales are at a record, equity markets are at year-highs, private equity firms are sitting on huge cash piles — Blackstone alone has $29 billion — and banks are lending to each other again.
The ingredients should all be there for a resurgence of cash-driven mergers and acquisitions. But instead, the market is in hibernation.
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The Wall
