Dunwoody, Ga.-based loan servicing company Ocwen Financial Corp. has reportedly agreed to buy $78 billion in mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) and related servicing advance receivables from Pasadena, Calif.-based OneWest Bank FSB for $2.53 billion.
Ocwen, which is licensed in all 50 states, will pay about $446 million for the MSRs and about $2.1 billion for the servicing advances, using a mix of cash and credit, according to a Bloomberg News report. As per the deal, which is expected to close later this year, the company has agreed to guarantee the obligations and performance of its loan servicing unit.
OneWest, a federal savings bank with 75 retail branches, has more than $25 billion in assets, according to the report.
Ocwen has been growing its servicing business through acquisitions and is becoming one of the largest loan servicing companies in the U.S. In March it announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire a portfolio of mortgage servicing rights from Ally Bank. The transaction included MSRs related to mortgage loans with an unpaid principal balance of approximately $85 billion, as well as an estimated $5 billion of agency MSRs created based on commitments made through the end of February.
In October 2012, the company announced that it had agreed to acquire Homeward Residential Holdings Inc. from private equity firm WL Ross & Co. LLC for about $750 million. Earlier in 2012, Ocwen acquired Litton Loan Servicing from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Saxon Mortgage Services from Morgan Stanley.
In March 2009, OneWest purchased many assets from the Independent National Mortgage Corp. (IndyMac), after IndyMac filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The deal does not include any other assets, according to the report.
