Kondaur Capital, a player in the distressed mortgage space, purchased roughly 1,500 loans in December, according to company CEO Jon Daurio.
"December was a good month for us," Daurio said in an interview with National Mortgage News, but expressed dismay at the lack of problem loans being sold in the secondary market. "There's a lack of bulk portfolios relative to what they must have."
For the full year 2010 Kondaur bought "thousands" of loans but the CEO did not have an exact number.
Most of the major banks that hold nonperforming loans (NPLs) don't tend to publicize their sales much with occasional exceptions.
Daurio said his company now services about $700 million in product.
The Orange, Calif.-based company, employs roughly 125 asset managers whose job it is to work out its problem loans and dispose of them. Daurio said the company recently let go of five asset managers, part of the company's continual process of cleansing its ranks of low performers.
"I mean them no disrespect," he told NMN, "but they are bottom performers and I have high standards."
Late this past summer Kondaur came to market with a $79 million security backed by troubled mortgages that had an initial face value of $263.7 million. Daurio declined to say who bought the tranches of the private placement.
The firm counts among its business partners The Carlyle Group in Washington.
