MetLife Lauds Record-Breaking $11B in Commercial Loans

""MetLife"":http://www.metlife.com/ originated $11 billion in commercial mortgages in 2011, making last year the largest on record for the life insurer.

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The company said in a statement Monday that it achieved the results by signing off on a number of real estate transactions with mortgages roughly equal to $200 million and above.

It said that these include $350 million on a loan for commercial real estate in Manhattan; $255

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million on a mortgage for an office building in Chicago; and super-regional malls based in Denver and Tampa, each worth $360 million and $325 million, respectively.

""Capitalizing on the strength of the MetLife lending platform, we were able to originate a significant number of larger loans on trophy office buildings and dominant regional malls in the U.S.,"" Mark Wilsmann, managing director and head of MetLife's mortgage lending group, said in a statement.

Robert Merck, senior managing director and global head of real estate investments for the company, chalked up the results in a statement to ""key guiding principles, which enabled us to strategically navigate through the economic downturn during the past few years and remain an active lender in the market.""

The record-breaking loans from last year come on the heels of a pullout by MetLife from the forward mortgage origination business, which the company announced last fall and completed in January.

MetLife more recently axed 804 originators in Irving, Texas, where it filed a notice of layoff with state authorities in February.