PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, a publicly traded vulture fund formed by former Countrywide president Stan Kurland, earned $8.2 million in the second quarter, almost six-times its profit in the prior period.
The company said it is earning money through workouts that include payoffs and sales which result in gains from its investments in nonperforming mortgage assets.
Not only did PennyMac have its best quarter ever as a public company, but the young firm noted that it is now funding some of its nonperforming asset investments with debt and hopes to complete a securitization by the end of this year.
"The company continues to see substantial volumes of attractive investments in distressed mortgage assets," Kurland said, adding that the REIT is seeing "attractive and growing opportunities" in the correspondent originations market.
In 2Q PennyMac invested $133 million in distressed mortgages, $97 million of which were whole loans. (In July it invested an additional $35 million in NPLs.) PennyMac's investment portfolio now totals $300 million.
Kurland left Countrywide in 2006, two years before the company's losses began to mount.
