Meridian Capital Group and Barings, one of the world’s leading investment managers, announces the launch of NewPoint Real Estate Capital .
NewPoint, which has completed the previously announced acquisition of Barings Multifamily Capital, will build upon Meridian’s extensive relationships and the breadth of Barings’ lending and asset management capabilities to pioneer a fresh approach to multifamily financing.
The concept behind NewPoint is embodied in the lending platform’s name: It reflects a new point of view – one that encourages a shift from traditional practices in multifamily financing to far more innovative and efficient models.
By introducing new methods for originating and executing multifamily loans, NewPoint is poised to provide the best possible experience for borrowers, as well as the company’s originators, underwriters and servicing teams.
But, this is not a typical start-up venture: The entities behind NewPoint have a long track record of success in the real estate and mortgage markets. Their perspectives are oriented toward the future, but they are influenced by decades (and, in the case of Barings, centuries) of experience.
David Brickman will serve as CEO of NewPoint. As previously announced, Brickman joined Meridian as executive chairman in January. He came to Meridian from Freddie Mac, where, as CEO, he led the $2 trillion mortgage company through much of the COVID crisis. He was also the long-time head of Freddie Mac’s Multifamily business, where he transformed the business, raising annual production from $16 billion in 2010 to nearly $80 billion in 2018 and establishing the agency’s K-Deal securitization program. In addition to his roles at NewPoint and Meridian, Brickman serves as a senior advisor to Stone Point Capital LLC, a private equity firm with extensive experience in the real estate finance and services sector.
Newpoint president Jeff Lee has also enjoyed an illustrious career in real estate finance. He co-founded Beech Street Capital in 2009. Following Capital One’s acquisition of Beech Street in 2013, Lee served as the business’ executive vice president and oversaw multifamily lending.
Ralph Herzka, Chairman and CEO of Meridian, and Yoni Goodman, President of Meridian, forged the joint venture as a means of building upon Meridian’s 30-year history as a multifamily financing advisor, as well as past successes in the agency lending space. Under their leadership, Meridian has held the position of the #1 multifamily intermediary in the U.S. for nearly a decade. In 2020, the firm closed approximately $40 billion of financing including $28 billion in multifamily financing. Herzka and Goodman will work closely with Brickman and Lee to chart the strategic growth of NewPoint.
“Through NewPoint, we intend to drive much-needed innovation in the multifamily sector by using technology to facilitate agency loans and reinvent multifamily securitization,” said Brickman. ” We’ll accomplish this by combining the extensive resources and sector-specific expertise of Meridian with Barings’ lending and asset management capabilities.”
Added Herzka: “We are thrilled to be embarking on this new chapter. Our partnership with Barings will enable us to join forces with one of the world’s leading asset managers and reintroduce Meridian to the direct agency lending arena. With David Brickman’s leadership, vision and creativity, our goal is for NewPoint to quickly become a go-to platform for multifamily financing nationwide.”
