Be on Guard & Stay Informed
Keep an eye on banking news
One of the most talked about parts of my post from last week was the video I posted from CNBC talking about banks being winners/losers during the growing volatility out there. So this week when I saw this blurb on the excellent newsletter “The Scroll” I knew I had to share:
If real estate investors can’t pay the banks back—partially due to higher interest rates—the banks stop making real estate loans, which drives the price of real estate down, which makes it harder for investors to pay them back. This “doom spiral” will likely be put to the test over the next year, especially as $900 billion in loans will need to be paid off or refinanced by the end of 2024.
Scott Rechler, chief executive of real-estate investor RXR, told the WSJ that the situation is “creat[ing] a backup that will eventually overflow on the commercial real-estate markets and on the banking system.” And Blockworks macro researcher Jack Farley tweeted on Saturday, “I have it on good authority that 84% of office CMBS [commercial mortgage-backed securities] were not paid off in August.”
Obviously, there’s an ominous tone there and for many in our industry it's not a surprise. In some segments and regions, it’s starting to squeeze. These comments surely add some insight to it all. More than ever, insight is power, so you need to be at GlassBuild to hear what Connor Lokar has to say about this all and how it will affect our world. The adventures continue…
Elsewhere…
Latest pod
In case you missed it… and not many of you did with some of the highest audio download numbers to date, (thank you!) the latest From the Fabricator podcast dropped last week and featured three great guys bringing a variety of perspectives. Hear from Joe Erb of Quanex, Nico Sanchez of Solite Systems and Charles Lubecke of Q-railing…
You can watch on YouTube, or listen here, as well as on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.
Meanwhile, I’ve got the next edition lined up and I am bursting at the seams on it, unreal lineup, can’t wait!
Glass Cast
Kudos to the awesome duo of Katy Devlin and Sara Neiswanger on the latest 2 episodes of Glass Cast. They broke down the incredible presentations by Matt Kamper of Woodbridge Glass and David Ferret of Bagatelos Architectural Glass Systems and delivered a perfect length podcast on both. Nothing better than lessons learned and these podcasts delivered the goods!
Watch the video with Matt Kamper, as well as this one with David Ferret.
Audio on Spotify and Apple, just search GlassCast, all one word.
Expansion news
A big congrats to the monster rep firm Seawall Architectural Products led by the dynamic duo of Kristen and Tony Kasprzak. They announced an expansion with the addition of Danielle Smith as Customer Experience Manager. A great hire and shrewd move by the Seawall team. Tony and Kristen just always keep that progress rolling!
Personnel news
Also speaking of strong companies making major positive moves, we can add Giroux Glass to that theme with the recent hiring of Jeff Heymann. This is huge news as Jeff is one of the most respected figures in our world (and a mission of mine to meet one of these days) and he’ll mesh nicely with the incredible group that Nataline Lomedico has built at Giroux. Tremendous news here for sure.
Glass in pop culture
Last this week… a glass in TV/movie reference….I am watching the mini-series “Special Ops-Lioness” on Paramount+. It’s been solid though pretty formulaic (written by Taylor Sheridan of Yellowstone fame, he just cranks shows out) and they had a character bust through a tempered door lite with perfection and the tempered looked good too. So unlike some other shows where the glass defied reality, this scene was legit.
