Bloomberg reports: Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Property Trust, the commercial real estate mortgage investor and lender, completed $144 million in investments in its first 60 days.Starwood completed the $110 million acquisition of loans on seven properties leased to a single tenant and also invested $10.9 million in bonds secured by the first mortgage of a New York City hotel, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based company said today in a statement.Sternlicht, 48, plans to profit in the commercial real estate market by buying distressed debt and originating loans. The credit crisis has driven $138 billion worth of U.S. commercial properties into default, foreclosure or debt restructuring, according to New York-based Real Capital Analytics Inc.Lenders are reluctant to extend credit as property values fall and unemployment rises. Commercial real estate prices have plunged almost 41 percent since October 2007, the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices show.Starwood Property boosted the size of its initial public offering by 62 percent on strong demand from investors. The company raised $931.5 million from investors in the offering and an additional $20 million in a private placement with an affiliate of Starwood Capital.
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