ICE Mortgage president out as Black Knight deal hits critical phase

At a key moment in Intercontinental Exchange's proposed purchase of Black Knight, the leadership at ICE Mortgage Technology is changing as Joe Tyrrell, the unit's president, is leaving the company.

Effective March 1, Timothy Bowler, the president of ICE Benchmark Administration, will take the same role at the mortgage business.

Tyrrell was a long-time employee of what had been Ellie Mae, joining the company in 2002 and by 2015 was promoted to executive vice president of corporate strategy. Tyrrell moved up to chief operating officer in 2019.

Days after the sale of Ellie Mae to ICE was completed in September 2020, its CEO Jonathan Corr retired and Tyrrell was placed in charge of ICE Mortgage Technology, which also included MRS and Simplifile.

It is the breadth of those businesses combined with scope of what Black Knight operates, particularly the servicing platform and the Optimal Blue product and pricing engine, which has deal opponents concerned. That is notwithstanding the rumored marketing of Black Knight's own loan origination system, Empower, in order to garner regulatory support for the deal.

Bowler started at ICE Benchmark Administration in 2017, where he oversees the ICE Swap Rate, the LBMA Gold Price, and ICE Libor. ICE took over publication of the Libor set of rates in February 2014 following a scandal over data submitted to the British Bankers Association for its publication.

Libor is still in the process of being phased out and Bowler was in charge of the transition on ICE's end.

Bowler is also a former managing director at Goldman Sachs' Financial Institutions Group and has held several positions at the Treasury Department.

"In an era of higher interest rates and increased closing fees, when the dream of home ownership remains elusive for too many people, Tim Bowler's broad expertise in the housing markets lends itself perfectly to ICE's vision of transforming and digitizing the mortgage industry, making loans more affordable and the process of securing a mortgage faster, easier, less expensive, and more transparent," said Ben Jackson, ICE's president, in a press release.

Due to the shrinking origination market, which the business is heavily dependent upon, ICE Mortgage Technology lost $6 million on an operating basis in the fourth quarter, compared with operating income of $16 million in the third quarter and $86 million one year prior. For the full year, it made an operating profit of $57 million, down from $397 million in 2021.

But it did report an improvement in the effort to make its business less cycle dependent, as the recurring share of revenues increased to $164 million in the fourth quarter, up 0.6% and 10% from $163 million three months earlier and $149 million a year ago.

The press release reiterated the company's view that the Black Knight deal will close in the first half of this year.