Fannie Mae has apparently doled out part of a large subservicing contract on Bank of America MSRs to the residential servicing division of International Business Machines, according to industry advisors who have been briefed on the deal.
B of A has agreed to sell roughly $73 billion of legacy MSRs to Fannie Mae – in a deal first reported on by The Wall Street Journal several weeks ago.
However, to date none of the parties involved in the transaction have confirmed (or denied) that an MSR purchase by Fannie actually took place.
The government controlled GSE has said publicly that it is not in the business of servicing loans – but it does employ at least five firms to subservice loans for it, a group dubbed by some as 'The Fannie Fabulous Five.'
Included in that group is Seterus, IBM's residential servicing division, and Green Tree Servicing, St. Paul, Minn.
Advisors say these two firms are Fannie's subservicers on the $73 billion B of A package – MSRs that once belonged to the GSE's biggest customer, Countrywide Financial Corp.
At press time, B of A, IBM, and Green Tree all declined to comment, or had not returned telephone calls about the subservicing contracts.
Prior to being taken over by the government three years ago, Fannie tried to buy subservicer Litton Loan Servicing, Houston, but a sale was never consummated. At one time, the GSE also looked into buying Green Tree.
