> Blackstone Mortgage REIT Shares Dive Most Since Early Pandemic

(Bloomberg) -- Shares of a Blackstone Inc.’s commercial mortgage trust posted their biggest two-day plunge since 2020 after executives highlighted “increased pressure” on $1 billion of loans.

The loans are mostly secured by office assets and have already been placed on a so-called watch list because such loans have lagged behind the broader real estate market, Blackstone Mortgage Trust Inc. executives told analysts Thursday. BXMT, as the real estate investment trust is known, placed three new loans on the watch list this quarter, including a Denver office loan.

The $20 billion REIT expects distributable earnings to be impacted by loan impairments in the third quarter, executives said after it reported its second-quarter financial results.

Shares of BXMT fell as much as 14% in the past two days to $14.11, the most since the early days of the pandemic.

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