Goldman Bidding on Litton

Goldman Sachs & Co. is exploring the possibility of buying Litton Loan Servicing, Houston, the nation's 12th-largest servicer of subprime mortgages, according to industry sources.As of MortgageWire's deadline, a spokesman for Goldman declined to comment. Litton is a unit of Credit-Based Asset Servicing & Securitization LLC, New York, a specialty servicer. C-BASS, in turn, is owned by mortgage insurers MGIC Investment Corp. and Radian Group, which in August wrote down their investments in C-BASS by more than $1 billion after the company was the subject of margin calls. Observers note that a sale of Litton would not necessarily include C-BASS or what's left of Fieldstone Mortgage, Columbia, Md., a nonprime lender that C-BASS purchased earlier this year.