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The mortgage banking industry has a major new player: Home Point Capital, a de novo business that will develop multi-channel residential mortgage origination, servicing and asset management capabilities, was founded by industry veteran Willie Newman and Stone Point Capital LLC, a financial services-focused private equity firm based in Greenwich, Conn.
Home Point, which will be headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Maverick Funding Corp., a Parsippany, N.J.-based mortgage banking company with 26 retail branches across 11 states and a national third-party lending operation. Maverick, which is licensed in 32 states and which originated nearly $3 billion of residential mortgages since 2012, will serve as Home Point’s initial mortgage banking platform.
For Newman, creating a new mortgage banking company at this time was a logical business decision.
“I felt with so much happening from a regulatory standpoint and with the market shifting, that there was an opportunity to build something that could take advantage of an environment that looks challenging for those on the outside,” Newman said, adding that the advantage of a de novo was the ability to bring a “clean, start-up perspective” rather than deal with legacy issues in acquiring an operational entity.
In choosing Maverick as the company’s platform, Newman praised the company as being the perfect model for his corporate needs.
“They have the right kind of leadership and culture that we need for assembling Home Point,” he said. “Doing a de novo without a platform like Maverick’s would be hugely challenging.”
In addition to significant capital commitments from Newman and the Home Point team of owner-operators, investment funds managed by Stone Point Capital have committed to invest up to $250 million in Home Point and affiliated residential mortgage businesses. Maverick’s founders, Ralph Vitiello and Mike Petruccelli, will remain with the new company as senior executives focused on growing the existing origination network. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals.
