Dechert 4 Real

Top Five CREFC Takeaways and a “Bullishly Measured” 2025 Outlook

• Dechert LLP • Episode 20

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Listen to the top five biggest takeaways from the CREFC annual conference in Miami on our first episode of 2025 with Dechert 4 Real Podcast co-host Jon Gaynor and producers Matt Armstrong, Kate Mylod and Stewart McQueen (who also co-chaired the conference). Get the inside scoop on the overall vibe, insights from keynote speaker Ron Howard, thoughts on increasing back-leverage options in commercial real estate finance and other trends to watch this year!

Show Notes

Full CREFC Miami 2025 Program

Hello and welcome back to the Dechert 4 Real podcast, where we discuss current issues and trends in commercial real estate finance. We aim to bring market commentary about developments, updates you can use, and hopefully a little bit of banter along the way. I'm Jon Gaynor, a partner based in Dechert's Philadelphia office.

Stewart McQueen:

I'm Stewart McQueen, a partner in Dechert's Charlotte office.

Matt Armstrong:

I'm Matt Armstrong, a partner in Dechert's New York office.

Kate Mylod:

And I'm Kate Mylod, a partner in Dechert's New York office. So Jon, was there a little something different about your introduction?

Jon Gaynor:

I think I changed like one word, I can redline it for you and send it to you later if you really want. In any event, we're happy to be back and in this special episode, instead of our usual crew of Ella Smith and Sam Gilbert, we're being joined by our producers to discuss our top five takeaways from the annual CREFC conference held in South Beach Miami at the Loews. But first, let's get 4 Real with the hosts to break the ice. January is almost over. A lot of people make New Year's resolutions. In the past, we've talked about our New Year's resolutions, but maybe you've already broken some of them by now. One of our colleagues, Marsha Jobaida, who's an associate in Philadelphia, who is also an excellent barometer of what's cool, said New Year's resolutions are out, and this year we're doing vision boards instead. So what's on your vision board for 2025? I'll start just to kind of like give an example. For me, this year, I am manifesting Aristotelian virtue, finding balance between competing excesses and deficiencies. Being the kind of person who wants to do what he's supposed to do because that's the right thing to do, and you know, love of eudaimonia and human thriving and all of that. But before I turn this into a philosophy podcast, Kate, what's on your vision board for this year?

Kate Mylod:

That's a pretty tough act to follow, because I was going to balk at the vision board idea and kind of reveal my age. I'm not young or hip enough to vision board. I'm still in the old-fashioned New Year's resolutions, and I'm ...

Jon Gaynor:

You're also the kind of person who keeps your New Year's resolutions. So I feel like I'm more of, I'm looking at maybe Stewart and Matt on the other part.

Kate Mylod:

Then you'll laugh at one of mine. So I want to read 36 books this year. There's a good shot I'll make that. It depends how busy the fourth quarter gets, and I want to be nicer to my husband.

Jon Gaynor:

Great. What about you, Matt?

Matt Armstrong:

All right, so my vision board, I didn't really know what a vision board was but, you know, I guess it would be a bunch of pictures of things that I'd like to be doing in the coming year. So I think, you know what I would have on there? I'd have a picture of my beach house, because I'd like to be down there, spending more time down there this year. And then I think I'd have a whole bunch of pictures of different sporting activities that I do with my family. Have a picture of cycling, surfing, skiing, golf, ice skating and volleyball. We're a pretty active family, and like to be involved with sports.

Stewart McQueen:

Similar to Kate and then similar to Matt in another respect, as Kate mentioned, I'm big on resolutions. Go dry January post-CREFC. And as Matt said, too, I had to kind of look up what vision boards were, where I'm not hip enough as well. But given that, I'll give it a try. I have a few and they aren't really just 2025, it's kind of how I live my life. I'll start with quoting the great Michael Scott from "The Office," who quoted the greater Wayne Gretzky from the NHL. "Uou miss 100% of the shots you don't take." And then to quote Dwight from "The Office," "I'm ready to face any challenges as it might be foolish enough to face me." But in all seriousness, you know, as far as a vision board, I kind of go back to something I learned early from my grandfather, you know, and just how you approach life and how you approach situations. One thing he said to me early in my life is, the minute you think you've arrived, you're getting passed by. So one of my big mottos is "avoid complacency."

Jon Gaynor:

I like the full scope of comedy and heartfelt grandfatherly advice, Stewart, you really ran the gamut there. I really think that counts as getting 4 Real with the hosts. So, I guess we can move on to the main event. So we have Stewart, Matt and Kate here to discuss their top five takeaways from the CREFC annual conference in South Beach. We met ahead of time, we discussed, we voted on and divided the topics. You know, it's a slight format change from our CREFC Roulette, but we think this will be a more dramatic and fun presentation. So with that preamble aside, Stewart, I think you've got number five.

Stewart McQueen:

Thanks, Jon. We voted and decided that the fifth was something we always talk about on this kind of wrap up from CREFC is what was the overall vibe? And from my perspective, and talking to a lot of people listening to the panels, I think we're back to cautious optimism. You know, everyone's busy. Everyone feels it. We feel it. Clients feel it. You know, the deal volume is up continued from a trend in last year, but I think the overall uncertainty and interest rates, I think the 10-year yield kind of went up during CREFC if I have my facts correct, the new administration that just started the other day. There's some cautious uncertainty, cautious optimism in the market. And that's what I walked away feeling from my discussions with everyone at the conference.

Matt Armstrong:

Yeah, I agree with that as well, Stewart. I mean, it seemed a more bullish mood at CREFC than in prior years. In prior years, we had been waiting for the market to come back, and then it seemed like the market, relatively, did come back this year, maybe starting in March of last year. SASBs were very busy. CRE CLOs are getting busy, and conduit had been relatively busy all year. But everybody was saying cautiously optimistic, but maybe it's a little more bullish than the last two years. And I looked at some stats afterwards, and they said there was 2,275 registrants to the CREFC conference, which is an all time high. You know, there were more people down there, and it looked like people were expecting to do deals this year.

Stewart McQueen:

Yeah, registrations were definitely up. Maybe we call it "bullishly optimistic." Is that a better way to describe it?

Matt Armstrong:

It's like putting two positive things together. I don't know. Can we handle that?

Jon Gaynor:

My favorite was during the investor roundtable, where they had the recklessly optimistic option, but literally nobody in the room of, like, 2,000 people with the little survey devices picked that one, which I thought was a missed opportunity for being like, you know, the lone funny person to hit that button.

Stewart McQueen:

How about bullishly measured?

Kate Mylod:

Maybe that's a good way to put it, Stewart. You know, what I'll say about this is I really felt that people were engaged, or let's speak to the high volume of people who were there, and just that, it really was standing room only in almost all of the panel presentations. But the sense was, we're not out of the woods yet, and nobody spent a lot of time patting themselves on the back for 2024 nor was anybody expecting 2025 to be a repeat. So I think that falls right into, maybe, the bullishly measured phrase that you're putting out there. Stewart.

Jon Gaynor:

You know, Kate, I think that's such a good point. I think you're exactly right. Everybody was really paying attention to the challenges and potential headwinds, and mindful that we had a lot of wood to chop for this year, to work out the distressed stuff, to get new deals done and that sort of thing. But I feel like we're a very sensible industry that tries to get things done, and you can't get things done if you're not paying attention to the actual challenges in front of you. Okay, I think we're ready to move on to number four, Matt, I think you've got this one.

Matt Armstrong:

Yep. So number four is the GSEs. The GSE panel this year, they used the phrase cautiously optimistic. That's what I heard bandied about there. And basically, you know, the concern would be that higher interest rates could slow down issuance in the second half of 2025. This year, the agency multifamily caps have been set at $73 billion. They were $70 billion last year. So there's an additional $3 billion in potential issuance. But, you know, last year, neither of the GSEs actually made it up to the cap. I think they ended up both around the mid-$60 billion mark for originations, and so they had more that they could have done. This year, people on the panel, I guess, were mentioning that the volume would be expected to be around in the $50 billions. But, you know, who knows? I mean, if interest rates were to come down in the second half of 2025, or moderate a little bit, then maybe, you know, things just stay busy all year qnd they could have a year where they do get up to the caps, but we haven't seen them actually get to the caps in the last couple of years. So, another thing that was talked about there just that there would be more demand for floating-rate mortgages and more demand for five-year fixed as borrowers aren't interested in locking themselves into 10-year fixed rate mortgages at these rates. And then one other thing that came up in the panel, I think it's come up in the panel every CREFC, but for the last few CREFCs, it was something that just wasn't even being thought about, or wasn't even on the table. And this year, it seemed like there was a different attitude around it, which is the potential release of the GSEs from conservatorship. There wasn't many details given about it, and I don't know that anybody actually has any certainty about what form this would take or how it would be done, but it was at least acknowledged and talked about, I thinknoted that it would not be quick or easy, and who knows if it would be done administratively or legislatively, but that it's at least something that I think the new, current administration might be thinking about. So that was a takeaway about that from the conference. And then, I guess one last thing, it was acknowledged that Sandra Thompson had resigned as head of the FHFA, and I think since the CREFC conference, we found out that President Trump is now going to nominate Bill Pulte. I don't know anything about him, but that's who's going to be the nominee for the new head of the FHFA.

Jon Gaynor:

I had heard the same thing that, like, the GSE conservatorship was not something that they think would be done in the next year. It could be two years. Could take the whole four years of Trump's presidency. Another interesting idea I heard floated in the CREFC legislative update panel before the keynote was the idea of maybe bifurcating some of the functionality. In other words, maybe multifamily gets out of conservatorship, but the, kind of, more resi and consumer directly focused stay in or something like that to kind of, like, address concerns around potential mortgage rate increases.

Matt Armstrong:

Yeah, I think all of those are things that the industry - and I guess the government - will have to think about as they approach this topic, which is probably why this topic really hasn't been approached in, what, is it the last 15-16, years?

Jon Gaynor:

OK, that brings us to number three. Kate, it's you.

Kate Mylod:

It sure is. So, for number three on our top five list from CREFC I'm calling this one "You Say NAV, I Say N-A-V." You felt that there was a lot of energy and discussion in the various panels around the capital behind the capital, be it more traditional, secured subscription facilities and warehouse lines to the emergent but already here to stay net asset value facility, and that the leverage behind the leverage topic was part of numerous panel discussions that I attended, from the alternative lenders and high-yield forum to the industry leaders roundtable and certainly with center stage at Wednesday's 9 a.m. standing room only panel on building leverage, strategic debt and CRE financing, where Dechert's very own and former 4 Real podcast guest Ani Ravi was a panelist. You know, what really resonated with me about this topic were two things. One, there are new players such as insurance companies, as well as the not so new players that are still very active in the back-leverage space, and they're all chasing good deals the same way that the primary leverage providers, i.e. those first mortgage lenders, invest lenders, are also chasing really good deals. Seemed that everybody that I talked to had some degree of involvement with something back leverage related. The other takeaway from hearing this percolate throughout the attendees was that the back leverage field is not afraid of innovation, and in particular, the Wednesday panel unpacked this evolution that's currently happening in the market, and that's for funds in particular, they have been seeking a product that can help them be financially stable at the beginning of the fund, something like a traditional subscription line, but then also kind of evolve with them as they get more stabilized and get assets under their belt to be more permanent, like an NAV. And one of the panelists used this phrase, which I think is a great takeaway, and it's this concept of, like, demand-driven innovation, which is what the consumers really wanted. And so the market providers have been coming up with these hybrid back-leverage deals that are basically subscription to start, and then they transform into something more akin to an NAV as the user of the back leverage gets stabilized. So I thought that was really cool, that the market is evolving in this way. It's a hot topic, and there's a high degree of sophistication with what these investors are able to do in this space.

Matt Armstrong:

Yeah, that is interesting. Kate. I've been hearing a lot about these NAV funds lately, and they seem like they could serve a good purpose for a bunch of our CRE CLO issuers. You know, as they get towards the end of a fund's life, I think it makes sense for the fund to finance itself with an NAV facility. And I think we've been hearing that, you know, that some of them have been putting those in place as they start to wind down a fund and they move on to the next fund that they create where they're issuing active CRE CLOs.

Stewart McQueen:

Yeah, I don't disagree with either one of you. I think it was a great panel. The one area I'm kind of focused on now, just thinking about and talking to clients about, are kind of what you're seeing. Kate, you use the term hybrid. A lot of people use this phrase a lot - hybrid warehouse, hybrid CLO, bilateral CRE CLO you know, we're starting to see a lot more of those discussions come up. It's always been here, but you're starting to see debt funds and the like, and even the providers of leverage, looking for more creative ways to bring capital leverage to the market.

Jon Gaynor:

Kate and I were in a couple of meetings together, and for my own conversations with folks around the conference, even in traditional repo is going to be growing a lot in 2025. I've heard quotes of banks saying that they are trying to increase the size of their repo balance sheets by anywhere between 15% and 40%, so there is a lot of back-leverage money out there chasing deals and between new entrants and competition between existing folks and deepening relationships with names that folks already have exposure to, there's a real opportunity to get involved. Now, does this change after 2025 if Basel III Endgame gets abandoned and capital rules don't change, and banks suddenly have more motivation to be doing more direct lending and less kind of back lever? Who knows. But for now, strike while the iron is hot is what I'd say.

Kate Mylod:

That's really well put, Jon. But this is one area where I think we can go back to Stewart's catchphrase and say it did feel very bullishly optimistic in this particular industry during the course of the conference.

Stewart McQueen:

Bullishly measured. Bullishly measured.

Kate Mylod:

No, no, no, I was being deliberate that it was bullishly optimistic. I meant to deliberately pair the two positives together.

Jon Gaynor:

Well, and I mean the big challenge, I think, for folks is going to be finding the right things to finance on these facilities right now, and if all of these banks are competing for a relatively currently small supply of new inventory to finance, like, there's going to be a lot of spread pressure in both the financing and the actual, you know, loan you're trying to get on the facility. Great time for borrowers, I guess, maybe. Maybe now is the time to keep pushing. But super interesting.

Kate Mylod:

I've got a call with the new borrower who has not dipped its toe in the water yet, but is looking at a repo this afternoon.

Jon Gaynor:

All right, and we'll take that one offline. Kate. I'll give you the redline of the intro,you'll let me know about this one. All right, so that was number three. Now we're on to number two. Stewart, I think this one's with you.

Stewart McQueen:

Yeah, I think number two was the last session on Monday, the session right before everybody was heading out to all the various parties and events that happened that evening. But it was a conversation with Barry Sternlicht from Starwood that I found was quite entertaining. I won't go into a lot of details or quotes of what he brought to the table, but I will say that, you know, for a Monday at 4:30

or 5:

00 session, it was well attended, and I think everybody was just very keyed in on what Barry had to say and the insights he had to share. Couple things I took away from it, you know, and how Barry and his team evaluate real estate is they just don't look at the dollars and cents of the project. They kind of look at the quality of the project. You know, what are the physical aspects of the property that they're investing in? And when you go evaluate a hotel, for instance, look at the size of the rooms and stuff like that. You can look at the attributes that sometimes have an impact on how busy the hotels are. One thing that was interesting to me is, you know, when you're evaluating a real estate investment, you know, one thing they shared was, don't just look at why a property sells, look at why the properties around them don't sell, and then you can gain a lot from, like, you know, how you can improve an asset. The third thing I took away is that, at the end of the day, there are the attractive asset classes, but you can have any type of property in the right market. You know, if it has right fundamentals, anything can trade today. So, that's the other thing I took away from it. But overall, it was very entertaining. It was very interesting hearing his insights and, you know, how he approaches the world.

Kate Mylod:

Does he have a vision board for 2025?

Stewart McQueen:

I did not ask him that.

Kate Mylod:

Could you pick up one from his his conversation?

Jon Gaynor:

I feel like Stewart already cribbed some, because he's talking about never being complacent. That was, like, a big takeaway to me. At least picking to align your vision board with a billionaire seems like a good move to me, Stewart.

Kate Mylod:

I'm sorry that I missed that conversation, but I think it's a really nice element of the CREFC planning to have more of these kind of chats with, you know, one-on-one industry leaders. I think it's gone over really well. People remember it, and they really want to hear what the speaker has to say. So, I think that's been a welcome shift in the programming the last you know, couple of CREFC conferences.

Stewart McQueen:

I agree.

Jon Gaynor:

Matt, did you get to catch Barry's fireside?

Matt Armstrong:

I caught it. I guess my takeaway from it was it was interesting to hear some of the things that he goes through. You know, he's definitely, you know, an insider. He's going to Mar-a-Lago and talking to the incoming president. It was just interesting to hear the stories that he's told and the stories that he said about things that he's heard. Kind of a world that most of us typically would not get to see.

Jon Gaynor:

I was surprised. I didn't realize Starwood had such a big presence in data centers. I feel like they don't associate them with that first, but it's how pervasive that asset class is becoming notwithstanding that I think he still thinks multifamily and industrial are better, but I guess a great property in a strong market always trades, right?

Stewart McQueen:

It's interesting. You bring up data centers and, you know, the interesting thing I took away was very attractive to build the I guess, the headwind or the obstacles making sure we have the infrastructure in place to support it.

Jon Gaynor:

All right, so before we get into our number one takeaway from CREFC, we have an honorable mention. I think, Kate, you get to make this one happen.

Kate Mylod:

I'll gladly take this one. So, the honorable mention goes out to the keynote guest, which was Ron Howard. This keynote guest was received extremely well by the audience, and this session truly was standing room only. Toby Cobb of 3650 Capital introduced Ron Howard with a key statement that set the stage. Everyone loves a winner and a success story, and that's exactly what Ron Howard is. You know, as a child of the'80s myself, I grew up with his magic on the TV screen and on the movie screen, and I forgot about classics like "Backdraft,""Far and Away," or more unusual hits like "Splash," or one of my personal favorites, "Cocoon." Tried to get my 15 year old to watch it with me this weekend, and he was like, "Mom, no." But what I really appreciated about the chat between Ron and Toby was that Ron didn't just regale us with his Hollywood stories. I mean, he shared some really good ones, but he talked about modern issues in his industry. And, namely, what does the movie industry do in a world of AI, and how will it be impacted? What's going to happen to studio space, right? Can AI be a research tool? Can it be an innovation stimulator? Those are concepts and ideas that we're all struggling with in our respective industries like, for example, Dechert in the legal industry, but also in the commercial real estate industry. You know, there was a panel on AI at the CREFC conference this year. So, I thought that was great to make that connection. One of the things that Ron reminded all of us about is that, you know, AI was preceded by digitization and, you know, when digitization started and green screens and, you know, everybody's like, "Oh, they don't make movies the way that they used to anymore," and now we so take that for granted, right? And so we're kind of at the nascency of AI, and probably in 5-10, years, it's going to be so integrated into our entertainment and into our work worlds that it will be like, "Oh yeah, remember when we didn't have AI?" So kudos to Ron Howard, kudos to CREFC for selecting him, kudos to Tony Cobb for doing a really nice job moderating their chat in front of easily 2,000 people. And it certainly was a feel-good, easy-to-like event.

Stewart McQueen:

I agree with you. I grew up in the '70s, so I remember some of his earlier things, like "Happy Days" and, you know, the reruns of the"Andy Griffith Show" that my mom used to watch, but I enjoyed it. I mean, he was quite entertaining.Obviously enjoyed his work. Clearly, everybody does love a winner. And, you know, he's just a Hollywood feel-good story that you just have to sit back and admire.

Jon Gaynor:

So, I grew up watching reruns of "Happy Days" at least, but I didn't put two and two together that Ron Howard was that guy hanging out with The Fonz. So that was special to me. I guess. I really found it striking when he was telling the story about how they filmed some of the weightless scenes in"Apollo 13," and that he is the director with, like, the actors were in the plane, you know, basically doing dive bombs in order to kind of simulate weightlessness for 37 seconds at a time, and him really being up in there in order to, like, make it happen, and just the kind of commitment to the craft. And it's like a theme too, because these, like, really successful people like Ron Howard or Barry Sternlicht, like, they're like, in the space, doing the thing, rolling up their sleeves to get stuff done, and kind of, like, taking a chance on something different and new. And I just, you know, I found that inspiring and a good business takeaway, which I liked a lot.

Kate Mylod:

I thought that ... the last thing I'll say about Ron Howard, too, is, you know, when he did open up the floor for questions, so many people were humbled to be able to ask him a question, because they just had, like, such, like, warm, fuzzy feelings in them that ... It wasn't like this giddiness, like, oh my God, oh my God, it's a movie star," but it was just this, like, genuine, just happiness that people felt, you know, being humbled that you know here is this great producer and director and writer and actor who really has molded, you know, a lot of our entertainment memories in a real positive way.

Jon Gaynor:

OK, we're on to our number one. Matt, you've got this one.

Matt Armstrong:

Yep. So, number one is the issuance volume for 2025, and at the conference, people were saying cautiously optimistic. But as Stewart has coined on this podcast, we're going to go with bullishly measured. The industry participants are expecting high levels of origination through mid year, and then as we get towards the second half of 2025 there could be some questions caused by the higher 10-year treasury rate. That 10-year treasury had been moving up. I think during the conference, it got up as high as 4.80%. I think it's back down to 4.60% today. So that's more positive for origination, but I guess the market has good visibility through the first half of the year. It doesn't have great visibility through the second half, and the second half will really depend on where interest rates are at that time. So if interest rates stay stable and don't move up, then we could have a really good year here. What we'll end up seeing, I think, the first thing that people were mentioning was more SASBs. In 2024 SASBs, there was$70 billion worth of issuance, which was $5 billion more than the prior two years combined. So really, just a banner year for SASBs. And I think, at least, looking through the first half of this year, we can expect more of the same this year. Will it be the same amount of issuance, or will it exceed that $70 billion, I don't know. But at least through the first half of the year, I think we're going to see a lot of SASB issuance, and then hopefully, if rates stay stable, we'll see it all the way through the whole year. There was a mention out there in one of the panels of a need to bring back order to the SASB issuance market. I think there's just been a lot of issuance and, you know, kind of different sponsors kind of coming out all at the same time, and they need to maintain order so they're coming to market with adequate spacing between the deals so people have dry powder to be able to invest in all of the SASBs that come to market. Another takeaway was that there would be more CRE CLOs in 2025. The CRE CLO volume was really picking up fourth quarter of 2024 and, you know, 2025 is looking like a great year for CRE CLOs. There was a$1 billion CRE CLO that priced before CREFC, which is unusual. I think that happened last year as well, but in the past, that's generally been unusual. Usually things come out and start pricing after CREFC, but this priced beforehand, and priced really well. And so, you know, there's other deals in the pipeline that are all going to be coming to market in the weeks after CREFC. I think we will see definitely more CRE CLOs this year than we saw last year. Another thing that was mentioned is that spreads are tight right now, or they're getting tight, but something,eventually, at some point in the year, is going to cause them to widen out. No one had any suggestions or thoughts on what that could potentially be, but maybe there could be something lurking out there. But, you know, the way the economy is looking right now, nobody can really foresee what that would be. So hopefully, knock on wood, nothing happens that would cause spreads to blow out. But hopefully they'll stay tight all year, and we can have, you know, a lot of issuance all year and have a really strong year. The final thing was office. I know, the last time we talked about a CREFC wrap-up, we were definitely talking about office. Well, this year, people were not really that focused on office. You know, there was a SASB deal, the Rock Center deal, that came to market and did really well. You know, now the Triple A or Class A SASB office market is really opening up, and I think we'll see more office SASBs in the future. For Class B SASB, I think some of that might need some work done to it. And, you know, people there had no idea of what to do with anything other than the Class A and Class B office, but at least Class A, we can expect to see more of that in SASB deals in 2025. And then, finally, one last takeaway, and this wasn't a takeaway from CREFC. This was actually an email that came out from CREFC, a kind of update after the conference, which was that CREFC might be pushing for potential revisions to the REMIC Rules. The idea being that, you know, with a Republican House, Senate and presidency, you might actually be able to get something done, some kind of a change to these rules. Well, if they would be able to change the REMIC Rules too, I think the three things they would want to do is allow additions of collateral after closing, modifications of performing loans, and allowing mez loans and C-PACE to also be considered qualified mortgages, that could be something that would make REMICs, which is, you know, the structure that's used for conduit deals and for most SASB deals, that could make them much more useful and allow them to incorporate some features that we see in CRE CLOs. So that would be something that would be great for the market if it were to occur. Who knows what the likelihood of that would be?

Kate Mylod:

I have to say it, but I think Matt brings us full circle back to our moderate bullishness, I think, with those projections for 2025.

Stewart McQueen:

I don't know. Is it bullishly measured or measuredly bullish? What should we say?

Kate Mylod:

I think they both work.

Stewart McQueen:

They both work.

Jon Gaynor:

We're workshopping, people. Give us time. We're gonna have a new catchphrase so you don't have to say cautiously optimistic over and over again for the rest of your life. I

Stewart McQueen:

think I have an idea for our new swag.

Jon Gaynor:

Measuredly bullish?

Stewart McQueen:

I'm sorry, new merch.

Jon Gaynor:

New merch. Yeah, no, I like that idea. So look out for your koozie or your hat or whatever. I think that brings us to our 4 Real High Fives. Does anybody have anyone they would like to thank?

Matt Armstrong:

Yeah, I'll go. I'd like to thank Stewart - who was the co chair of CREFC - and CREFC for putting on a great conference in Miami. It gives everyone in the industry an opportunity to get together and gather information about business trends and also who doesn't like the warm weather in Miami in the middle of winter? I mean, it's freezing up here in New York now, so I was loving those four days in Miami.

Stewart McQueen:

Yeah, thank you, Matt. I served with a lot of great individuals as co chairs of this year's conference. Kind of sad to be rolling off, but it was an honor to work with my partner in crime, Thanh Bui from Clarion Partners, and we're both rolling off together. We've been serving for the past year in this capacity, and then also working with our new co-chairs, Elaine McKay of Ares and David Schell of BMO Capital Markets. It was certainly an honor and a pleasure to work with all of them in this capacity for the CREFC conference in January.

Kate Mylod:

I have a 4 Real High Five that sticks with our CREFC theme here. I'd like to give a shout out to Lea Overby from Barclays, one of our podcast alum. She chaired the industry leaders roundtable. I think this was at least her second time doing it, and she just has a great style and poise, and get some good intel out of the folks sitting in that U-shaped table up there. And just want to recognize her for doing another great job this time.

Jon Gaynor:

Well, thank you for those High Fives, and thank you to our audience for joining us for another episode of the Dechert 4 Real podcast. If you have any thoughts, please share them with us at our email inbox, realpodcast@dechert.com. Also, if you like what you heard, give us a five-star rating on whatever platform that you found this on. This episode was hosted by Stewart McQueen, Matt Armstrong, Kate Mylod and me. Jon Gaynor. Sam Gilbert and Alice Smith produced it. Production Support is by Kara Ray, Mallory Gorham, Alyssa Norton, Peggy Heffner, James Wortman and Jacob Kimmel. Our editor is Andy Robbins of AudioFile Solutions. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on the Dechert 4 Real podcast. OK, producers, now is your time to shine with some Miami-themed dad jokes. Who wants to go first?

Matt Armstrong:

I'll go first, Jon. How about this? Why couldn't anyone find the Miami International Airport?

Jon Gaynor:

Why couldn't they?

Matt Armstrong:

it went MIA.

Stewart McQueen:

Oh my goodness. For the listening audience, Stewart just did, in real life, that palm-on-forehead emoji and knocked himself backwards. He was laughing "so hard."

Jon Gaynor:

All right, Kate, since you razzed Matt, what's yours?

Kate Mylod:

All right, well, I think I can top that one. Get ready, guys. Why did the Lakers go to Miami?

Jon Gaynor:

Why did they?

Kate Mylod:

to beat the Heat.

Jon Gaynor:

We're doing sports themes. Oh, Stewart's also like, please don't fall out of your chair, Stewart. You're too important to us.

Stewart McQueen:

I think those are two of my favorite I've heard.

Jon Gaynor:

All right, do you want to try one? Stewart?

Stewart McQueen:

I do not. I do not.

Jon Gaynor:

All right, I got one then, since we're on a sports theme, Kate, a group of dolphins is called a pod. A group of falcons is called a cast. So what are you watching if you see the Miami Dolphins play the Atlanta Falcons?

Kate Mylod:

I don't know, what are you watching?

Jon Gaynor:

A podcast.

Kate Mylod:

Oh, how appropriate.

Matt Armstrong:

I see what you did.

Jon Gaynor:

All right, at least I'm not almost killing Stuart. So I call that a plus, OK?

Kate Mylod:

I think Matt's was my favorite.

Stewart McQueen:

Yeah, that was actually pretty good.

Kate Mylod:

Well done.