Over the past year speculators have placed some heavy bets against certain publicly traded mortgage companies by shorting their stocks, a “trade” that could be petering out as investors take their money off the table. According to investors and analysts who track companies such as Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Financial and Walter Investment Management, the share price of all three has fallen so dramatically that the days of easy profits are over. Ocwen, for example, presently trades...[Includes one data table]
Chuck Klein, managing director for Mortgage Banking Solutions, agrees that most of the coming M&A activity will center on small- and medium-sized shops.
Although no “large” mortgage companies have changed hands in quite some time, investor interest in small to medium-sized lenders remains strong as banks, private-equity funds and nonbanks continue to show their interest as buyers. Since last fall, at least 25 deals have been publicly disclosed, according to sales tracked by Inside Mortgage Finance, but none of the originators have been larger than $4 billion a year in production. According to interviews conducted over the past week with investment banking advisors, in the months ahead lenders that originate between $500 million to $2 billion a year are...
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