Capital Markets

Guardian Commercial Lending represents commercial real estate investors and developers in securing both debt and equity financing for properties and portfolios nationwide. With access to a wide array of capital sources, we structure short-term, immediate and long-term solutions supporting the acquisition, refinancing, construction, rehabilitation or repositioning of commercial real estate assets.

When capital markets is the right desk

Most transactions are a single property and a single loan, and they are handled well by the products on our loan products page. Capital markets work is different in kind, not just size. It applies when:

• The transaction is large enough that institutional sources become available at better pricing
• The capital stack needs more than one layer — senior debt with mezzanine or preferred equity above it
• You are financing a portfolio rather than an asset, and cross-collateralization changes the economics
• The project requires equity as well as debt, and the two need to be structured together
• The property does not fit conventional programs and needs capital assembled around it

Debt and equity, structured together

Arranging debt first and hunting for equity afterwards routinely produces a stack that does not work — a senior lender's covenants can rule out the equity partner you were counting on, and an equity partner's return requirements can make the senior debt uneconomic. Structured together, each piece is priced knowing what sits alongside it.

This is also where equity partnering integrated with your debt structure comes in. For sponsors who are strong operationally but short on the equity a deal requires, bringing in a partner is often the difference between a project that proceeds and one that does not.

What to bring to a first conversation

For capital markets work we need more than a property address: the business plan for the asset, your track record with comparable projects, the sources and uses you have in mind, and your intended hold period and exit. Sophisticated capital sources underwrite the sponsor at least as carefully as the building.