Mortgage Banking Solutions, Woodway, Texas, says it is currently working on four merger-related transactions with announcements on two of them coming shortly.
Company managing partner Chuck Klein told National Mortgage News that the deals involve both depositories and nonbanks lenders. He declined to reveal the firms' identities because the transactions have not yet closed.
Klein, who has been working in the M&A space for three decades, said many mortgage firms are trying to poise themselves for both survival and future growth – with an eye toward having enough minimum capital to meet new guidelines promulgated by the GSEs and FHA.
He noted that many mortgage bankers he's talked to are changing their attitude regarding servicing released premiums (SRPs) and building up a portfolio of receivables. “Everyone's talking about retaining servicing these days,” he said.
Over the past three years nonbanks have complained about weak SRP prices in the secondary market. Still, many correspondent mortgage bankers continue to sell their production servicing-released because they obtain cash upfront and don't have to deal with the regulatory and compliance headaches of being a servicer.
