Saxon Identified as Seller of Servicing to Ocwen

Morgan Stanley-owned Saxon Mortgage has been identified as the seller of a $6.9 billion bulk package of residential servicing rights to Ocwen Loan Servicing, West Palm Beach, Fla. Industry sources confirmed to National Mortgage News that Saxon was indeed the seller, although there was no investment banker of record on the transaction. A sale agreement was executed at the end of March but was not disclosed publicly until this week. OLS's parent company mentioned the acquisition in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission but provided no details on the portfolio, except to say it included 38,000 loans. Both Saxon and Ocwen did not return telephone calls about the sale. Servicing advisors noted that more bulk servicing sales were seen in the first quarter of 2010 than in all of last year. One of the most closely watched pending deals is the auction of roughly $20 billion in rights belonging to the now defunct AmTrust Bank of Cleveland. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is selling the package through Milestone Merchant Partners.