John Levy is president of John B Levy & Co. Levy and partner Michael Giliberto recently launched the Giliberto-Levy High Yield Real Estate Debt Index (G-L 2), which is the first third-party measure to monitor high-yield commercial mortgage debt performance. The index was designed to complement the Giliberto-Levy Commercial Mortgage Performance Index (G-L 1), which launched in 1993 and provides a quarterly performance benchmark for investments in private-market first-mortgage real estate debt. Levy spoke with Institutional Real Estate Americas editor Loretta Clodfelter about the new index and how it fits into the broader real estate debt environment. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

To start, can you briefly describe the Giliberto-Levy High Yield Real Estate Debt Index?

Can I back up just a minute? We should start with the G-L 1, which is our original institutional index, because it will g