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Nationstar, Ocwen and Walter Investment picked a tough time to make an aggressive push into mortgage lending, but their efforts could pay off once new mortgage rules kick in.
November 14
Walter Investment Management (WAC) has bought $30 billion of mortgage servicing rights from an unnamed bank.
Walter Investment, one of the largest nonbank mortgage servicers in the U.S., identified the seller only as a "large national depository" in a news release Wednesday. The rights are backed by Fannie Mae and have an unpaid principal balance of about $30 billion.
The deal "further extends our strategic client relationships with large national depository institutions and underscores the sector's focus on outsourcing non-core assets to specialty servicers," Walter Investment's chief executive, Mark O'Brien, said in a news release.
Walter Investment said it currently has pending agreements to acquire servicing rights with a total unpaid balance of about $62 billion. Of that amount, it has signed definitive agreements to buy about $54 billion and has signed letters of intent to purchase the remainder.
Along with other nonbanks like Nationstar (NSM) and Ocwen Financial (OCN), Walter Investment has made a strong push into servicing distressed mortgages in the past year, as banks have sought to shed their servicing rights.
In January, Walter bought ResCap's pool of Fannie Mae-backed servicing rights, as well as ResCap's mortgage-origination platform. It has also bought servicing rights from
