The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council has released a policy statement supporting prudent commercial real estate loan workouts. The statement provides guidance for examiners, and for financial institutions that are working with CRE borrowers who are experiencing diminished operating cash flows, depreciated collateral values, or prolonged delays in selling or renting commercial properties. Financial institutions that implement prudent loan workout arrangements after performing comprehensive reviews of borrowers' financial conditions will not be subject to criticism for engaging in these efforts, even if the restructured loans have weaknesses that result in adverse credit classifications, according to council agencies NCUA, FDIC, the Federal Reserve Board, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision. In addition, performing loans, including those renewed or restructured on reasonable modified terms, made to creditworthy borrowers, will not be subject to adverse classification solely because the value of the underlying collateral declined, according to the council. The policy statement includes examples of CRE loan workouts. The examples, provided for illustrative purposes only, reflect examiners' analytical processes for credit classifications and assessments of institutions' accounting and reporting treatments for restructured loans. The policy statement reiterates existing guidance that examiners are expected to take a balanced approach in assessing institutions' risk-management practices for loan workout activities, the FFIEC said. –[email protected]