ING Groep NV, the Dutch financial services group, raised $730 million to buy high-yield commercial real estate debt, taking advantage of widening spreads and investors selling at discounted prices, reported the International Herald Tribune.

“Demand was very strong. We could probably have raised more,” said David Blight, chief executive of ING Real Estate Investment Management. “The challenge is to get it invested, as liquidity has to a large extent dried up.”

Spreads on commercial mortgage-backed securities — bonds backed by mortgages for hotels, offices and malls — have gotten “so out of kilter” that investors wanted to exploit the arbitrage, Blight said.