COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Fleet Mortgage Group has completed the purchase of $3 billion in mortgage loan servicing, it was announced today by Michael R. Zucchini, chairman and chief executive officer.
The $3 billion portfolio includes some 27,000 loans with an average loan size of about $109,000 and a weighted average note rate of 6.9%.
All of the loans purchased are geographically dispersed and the total delinquency rates are less than 0.54%, which compares favorably to the average industry delinquency rate of about 3.84%, the announcement
Fleet has been an aggressive acquirer of mortgage assets, recently buying more than $6 billion of prime servicing rights from Country Funding Corp. Its parent, Fleet Financial Group, also bought Plaza Mortgage Corp., Santa Ann, Calif., for $120 million. Analysts said the $8.5 billion of Plaza's servicing appeared to be valued at about 132 basis points.
A Fleet spokesman said that the sales agreement prohibits it from identifying the seller in its latest deal. No price was given, but the quality appears higher than Plaza's, and could fetch more than $40 million in today's market.
Bill Curley of Cohane Rafferty Securities Inc., Harrison, N.Y., said quite a bit of servicing was on the market at the moment. His company is offering $2.9 billion from Citicorp and $2 billion from Home Savings, Irwindale, Calif.
"Our strategy of growing the servicing portfolio through bulk acquisitions has been serving us well at a time when retail originations are down significantly," Mr. Zucchini said. He said Fleet had purchased a company record $14.5 billion in bulk servicing acquisitions since the beginning of 1994.
