Hadley will be responsible for all of Oakwood’s primary and special commercial real estate loan servicing activities and will also play an advisory role for Oakwood clients seeking to invest in CRE debt portfolios.
She joins Oakwood from American Appraisal where she was director and head of the debt advisory practice in the UK. Prior to this she was vice president of special servicing at Barclays Capital mortgage servicing, where she managed a book of distressed CRE debt on the Eclipse commercial mortgage backed security programme worth around £2bn.
Hadley said: “We expect significant opportunities to arise for servicers and acquirers of distressed European CRE loans driven primarily by the increasing pressure on banks and other holders of CRE loans to divest their holdings for regulatory and other reasons.
“Consequently, portfolios and single loans of mixed credit quality are trading into private equity funds and other investment vehicles, and we expect this trend to intensify in the future.
“Significant volumes of CRE loans are also facing maturity events over the next three years and will need to be refinanced; those that cannot source refinancing liquidity are most likely to be restructured, sold consensually or liquidated.”
Hadley added that it was in this environment that Oakwood’s return driven approach to special servicing expertise could add value.
“As banks currently have limited liquidity, origination of new CRE loans is picking up through the non-bank lending channels, which is also leading to new CRE loan servicing opportunities,” she said.
“Oakwood will be well-positioned to manage these loans utilising teams of subject-matter experts that not only understand the performance of debt portfolios, but also understand the true value of the security underpinning the asset: the hard real estate.
“As well as financial and real-estate expertise, Oakwood has robust infrastructure in place with technology, procedures, compliance and of course people to deal with large-scale mortgage books.”
James Bamber, partner at Oakwood, added: “Oakwood is actively developing its ability to offer a broader range of services to its existing and potential clients. Commercial real estate loans represent one of the largest assets classes in the debt trading space.
“Emily’s experience in working out some of the most complex commercial loan structures combined with our ability to leverage our technology, our experience in trading and transferring loan pools on to our platform and our asset management approach create a powerful combination that we believe will present a compelling alternative to existing servicers. “
