Cantor Commercial Snags Freddie Mac Veteran May for Lending Business

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Cantor Commercial Real Estate has snagged former Freddie Mac multi-family exec Michael May as the newest member of its multi-family team.

As a managing director leading the company’s multi-family lending business as national head of the division, May will be plenty busy. But he brings plenty of experience to the job.

Over the last three decades, May has cultivated a respected level of expertise in the areas of capital markets, residential mortgage and multi-family mortgage. Most recently, he proved his mettle as executive vice president of multi-family sourcing at Freddie Mac, responsible for supervising the daily operations of the government-sponsored enterprise’s multi-family business line. Before that, he served as senior vice president of operations for the GSE, managing a variety of business divisions.

May’s exit from Freddie Mac–he bade adieu in July 2011–marked yet another addition to the lengthy list of departures from both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae following the collapse of the government-sponsored enterprises and ensuing takeover by the government in 2008. The GSEs have been practically bleeding executives ever since. Recent defectors include Charles Haldeman Jr., who left Freddie Mac earlier this year; last month he was named to the board of directors of The McGraw-Hill Cos., the global financial information and education concern. In January, Michael Williams announced he would resign from his position as CEO of Fannie Mae. In June the agency named his successor, Timothy Mayopoulos, who had previously occupied the positions of executive vice president & chief administrative officer.

May’s career at Freddie Mac had spanned 28 years at the time of his departure last year and, as CPE reported in a column in August 2011, many of the executives who have walked away from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae over the past few years took their decades-long history at the GSEs with them.

Obviously, CCRE views Freddie Mac’s loss as the commercial real estate finance company’s gain. “Our multi-family lending business is one of the largest and most respected in the commercial real estate industry,” said Anthony Orso, CEO of CCRE. “With Michael’s strong leadership and expertise in the multi-family sector, we will be able to expand our footprint and strengthen our ability to provide top-notch service to our clients.”

But it’s not all about multi-family for CCRE. The company added another commercial real estate expert to its team this week, hiring Kenneth Margala to serve as a director focusing on loan origination. Margala, formerly an executive director at UBS Investment Bank, will assist in CCRE’s push to expand its business in key markets on the West Coast.

For more on the GSE brain drain, click through to CPE‘s package of reporting and guest commentary coverage posted during the height of that activity last summer, as well as more recent news coverage.