Some mortgage vulture funds may be heading for the exits, but not the publicly traded PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, the brainchild of former Countrywide Financial Corp. president Stanford Kurland.
The Calabasas, Calif.-based REIT reported a $7.6 million profit in the first quarter, a slight improvement from 4Q. It also is continuing to bid on and acquire nonperforming residential whole loan portfolios.
At the end of March, it bought a $31 million pool of NPLs, and then a few weeks later bought $134 million worth of nonperformers.
According to its earnings statement, PennyMac is making money from “realized and unrealized gains” on its investments. In 1Q, for example those gains totaled $10.4 million – with about one-fourth of that coming from payoffs and sales on its NPL holdings.
“The whole loan portfolio performed well in the quarter,” said Kurland, who serves as chairman and CEO of the firm. “We saw some seasonality effects early in the quarter as fewer investors purchased homes out of foreclosure or via REO sales. The extreme winter conditions across the United States had a negative effect on sales as well, impacting our liquidation results for the quarter and increasing the age of the portfolio of REO we hold in inventory.”
The REIT said it will maintain its dividend at $0.42 per share.
