Vornado in the Hunt for CW Financial

Vornado Realty Trust has submitted a bid to buy CW Financial Services, the parent of the second-largest manager of delinquent commercial real estate loans, according to a report by Bloomberg. A winner for New York-based CW Financial could be selected by next week, the news organization reported, quoting a source familiar with the deal. Buyout firms Apollo Global Management LP and Centerbridge Capital Partners LLC, which had made competing offers, are no longer seeking to buy the company, according to two people familiar with the auction. CWCapital Asset Management, a unit of CW Financial, is the special servicer of $144 billion of securitized real estate loans, including more than $18 billion that are delinquent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Ben Thypin, an analyst at Real Capital Analytics Inc. in New York, said CWCapital has access to valuable pricing and payment information. "Owning a firm like CW gives access to information on a lot of troubled loans as well as an established platform for originating new ones," Thypin said. "That puts the owner in the driver's seat and in control of distressed real estate that they may want for themselves." Vornado is the third-largest U.S. real estate investment trust by market value.