Barry S. Sternlicht
Management
So on the equity side of our business, we lever to the cash flow stream, the security of the cash flow stream, and I wouldn't think we'd approach the debt side much differently. We'd look at, like, one of the earliest deals we did, I think, were 25 Walgreen leases, which are AAA, and 25 years long in duration. So well, I think we levered that deal 90%. I think it's a way out the curve, and are the only one at that point. I think it's still in our book. So we don't really have a fixed rule, and I wouldn't give you on this call what the board would determine as the optimal leverage for the company. But we are looking at it, and I think as you pointed out, we do some slightly different things, obviously. We do compete with that company and several others in originating loans. And a first mortgage, if you're writing a first mortgage, would you take those debt, let's see, those 75% first, would you take 50% senior? Absolutely. Would you take a 60% senior? I suppose so. I mean, depending on what kind of asset it was. If it was a hotel, maybe not. If it was an office building, maybe, especially if it's a long leased office building. But so you're right, I mean, you can't go perfectly apples-to-apples. Are you buying or originating a mezzanine, and so you're buying the mezzanine. We bid on some notes yesterday. So I don't know what would happened to them, but they're all mezzanines. I mean, and so, we're going to -- what we do is we look at each of our assets, and we take our -- convert debt and our term debt, and we allocate it to this paper, as if it was direct debt on those instruments, and we see if what we call levered or over-levered. And right now, we're about where we want to be. But as these loans fund, the construction loans fund, we're going to be under-levered. And so there, we have something to do, and we know when we have something to do so we'll go do it, I hope. But I think it changes as the complexion of the portfolio changes, and there's no heart in the FAS rules.