NYC Investor Buys Online Home Equity Firm

Third Federal Savings and Loan, Cleveland, has inked a deal to sell its online home equity business to Lightyear Capital, New York, for an undisclosed sum.Third Federal launched the business, called DeepGreen Bank, three years ago. A spokeswoman for the thrift declined to discuss DGB's profitability. Lightyear, a private equity firm that manages $2 billion in assets, will take control of all of DGB's servicing rights, its production platform, technology, infrastructure, management team, and employees. DGB, which gets leads from LendingTree, funded $1.2 billion last year and is on track to fund $1.4 billion this year, said a company spokesman. Third Federal has been buying loans from DGB and will continue to do so, the spokesman said. (See the Oct. 6 issue of National Mortgage News for more details.)