CMSA Switches Gears as CRE Finance Council

The board of governors of the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA), a trade organization dedicated to the commercial real estate capital markets finance industry since 1994, has transformed CMSA into[IMAGE]a new organization that will serve all constituencies within commercial real estate finance. CMSA is now the ""CRE Finance Council"":http://www.crefc.org.

The association explained that the creation of the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Finance Council is reflective of the growing changes in the financing world for commercial real estate around the globe. According to the group, the new direction will help drive a vibrant, transparent, and accessible commercial finance market.

""Our intention always is to be responsive to our members and to the market's changing course, and the CRE Finance Council is a natural and logical extension of this new course,"" said Dottie Cunningham, CEO of the CRE Finance Council.

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The CRE Finance Council initially will include five ""forums"" delineated by market participant groups: investment-grade bondholders, multifamily lenders, portfolio lenders, servicers, and securities and loan investors. Each of the forums will interact and address issues critical to its business sector and work to achieve solutions that serve a common purpose.

As these specialized forums collaborate, the CRE Finance Council's objectives will be to represent all forum participants, manage disparate and converging views, advocate the consensus of positions to policy and lawmakers on behalf of the industry, educate members, and develop best practices.

""We will always attempt to foster a consensus on issues that are important to our various stakeholders,"" said Patrick C. Sargent, president of the CRE Finance Council and a partner in the Dallas-based law firm of Andrews Kurth LLP. ""Our members want an adaptive, expanded organization, forged by the successes of its predecessor, but one that serves all constituencies for our changing industry. And we are very excited to address the industry's challenges and to advance our members' objectives.""

The ""CRE Finance Council"":http://www.crefc.org is the trade organization for the global commercial real estate finance industry. The group has a presence in Europe, Japan, and North America.