(BRK.A), (BRK.B)
Berkadia, Berkshire Hathaway’s joint venture with Leucadia National Corporation, has announced the addition of prominent industry veteran Hilary Provinse as Executive Vice President and Head of Mortgage Banking. She will oversee a team of 130 experienced mortgage bankers located in 31 offices across the country. Ms. Provinse will be a member of Berkadia’s Management Committee and report to Ernie Katai, Executive Vice President and Head of Production. She joins Berkadia from Fannie Mae after a 15-year career, where she most recently served as Senior Vice President and Head of Multifamily Customer Engagement.
“We are extremely fortunate to have Hilary join the Berkadia team,” said Berkadia CEO Justin Wheeler. “With more than 20 years of experience and leadership in CRE capital markets, she is a dynamic leader and forward thinker. Her positive energy and relentless drive to perfect the customer experience will continue to push our platform to new levels. A talent of her caliber is an incredible addition.”
Most recently at Fannie Mae, Provinse led a team of 85 professionals in offices across the country, overseeing all of Fannie Mae’s multifamily debt lending activities and customer engagement. She oversaw Fannie Mae’s transformation to a relationship-based, customer-centric sales organization and led the multifamily production team to double their production volume over a four-year period.
“I could not be more excited to join Berkadia, a client-first organization that provides holistic commercial real estate solutions through its integrated mortgage banking, investment sales and servicing platform,” said Ms. Provinse. “While at Fannie Mae, I saw Berkadia investing in its people and culture and focusing on innovation, process and technology to grow its mortgage banking footprint exponentially to better serve customers, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to build upon that success.”
Prior to her tenure at Fannie Mae, Ms. Provinse spent nearly a decade on Wall Street in investment banking and fixed income trading at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns. She earned a Bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a Master of Business Administration degree from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
About Berkadia
Founded in 2009 as a 50/50 joint venture between Berkshire Hathaway and Leucadia National Corporation, Berkadia is a third-party commercial mortgage servicer, as well as an approved lender for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD/FHA.
The company is among the top Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae multifamily lenders. In 2016, Berkadia’s loan origination volume was $20 billion, ranking first with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, second with Freddie Mac and fourth with Fannie Mae in delivered loan volume—the only lender in the top four for all three organizations.
Berkadia owes its origins to GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corporation, which was acquired in 2009 by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Five Mile Capital Partners LLC, and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. Christened Capmark Financial, the company had $10 billion of originations in 2008 and a servicing portfolio of more than $360 billion before running into bankruptcy in October 2009.
In a deal approved by the bankruptcy court, Capmark sold its mortgage loan and servicing to the newly formed Berkadia in a deal worth $515 million.
The deal brought Berkshire into the heart of the commercial loan serving business, and the company has one of the largest commercial real estate servicing portfolios.
© 2017 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.