loanDepot Reports Eighth Consecutive Quarterly Loss

loanDepot reported its eighth consecutive quarter of losses Tuesday evening. The Irvine, Calif.-based lender saw its quarterly production volume fall 13% to $4.6 billion January through March, down from $5.3 billion the previous quarter and $4.9 billion in the first quarter of 2023, an 8% drop year over year.

Overall, the company posted a net loss of roughly $72 million through the first quarter, a 19% quarterly increase in net losses, but a 22% decrease year over year.

Total first-quarter revenues fell to roughly $222 million, by 2.5% from roughly $228 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. However, first-quarter revenues were up 7.1% year over year, “primarily due to higher servicing fee income and pull-through weighted gain on sale margin,” the company reported in a statement announcing the first-quarter results.

Meanwhile, total expenses increased to roughly $308 million, or by 1.7% from roughly $302 million in the fourth quarter. Total expenses declined 2% year over year, “primarily due to lower headcount related salary expenses and marketing costs,” the statement read.

However, a January cyber attack partially offset this improvement in total expenses, impacting profitability.

“The company was able to restore operations relatively quickly,” said loanDepot’s President and Chief Executive Officer Frank Martell in the earnings release, “however lost revenue and additional expenses related to the incident impacted our first quarter financial results. We do not expect further disruptions in our operations stemming from this incident.”

David Hayes, the company’s chief financial officer, also weighed in on the incident.

“During the first quarter we incurred $15 million of charges directly related to the cyber incident,” said Hayes. “Additionally, we estimate our revenue was also adversely impacted by approximately $22 million from the time our systems were offline and were unable to take customer locks.”

The company’s liquidity position deteriorated slightly in the first quarter, dropping 8% from a cash balance of $661 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 to $604 million in the first quarter.

The company noted that market conditions will likely remain difficult through the remainder of the year. “Despite recent increases in interest rates that have reduced industry forecasts for 2024 market volumes,” Hayes added, “we continue to aggressively focus on our plan to return to profitability.”