At the end of a Bloomberg article on the increase in commercial credit defaults that banks are seeing you'll find this gem:

Most troubled commercial properties have loans that are either syndicated or packaged into securities and sold to investors, and aren’t owned by a single lender. One Riverwalk Place, an 18-story office building in San Antonio, defaulted this year, as did Riviera Holdings Corp., a Las Vegas-based casino owner. Neither loan is owned by a single lender.

Banks, like real estate developers, sold off most of the riskiest debt, said Dan Fasulo, a London-based managing director at Real Capital Analytics.

“They keep the good deals for themselves, and they do the riskier, shadier stuff with a partner,” Fasulo said. “What are you going to do with the bad stuff? You’re going to try to syndicate it privately.”

Sound familiar?