The banking crisis continues to have implications for the mortgage loan origination and servicing industries.
Both United Wholesale Mortgage LLC (UWM) and loanDepot Inc. have found new partners for financing, with loanDepot in particular seeking to distance itself from the troubled Credit Suisse Group AG.
Switzerland’s second-largest bank, Credit Suisse is being acquired by UBS, the top Swiss bank, to fend off concerns about its financial stability.
According to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, on March 16, loanDepot amended a Master Repurchase Agreement originally dated March 10, 2017, with Credit Suisse First Boston Mortgage Capital LLC, assigning it to Atlas Securitized Products and Nexera Holding LLC.
Atlas was launched in February by Apollo Global Management, which late last year acquired a significant portion of Credit Suisse’s securitized products.
loanDepot’s move from Credit Suisse followed its announcement in a separate SEC filing last week that it had transferred $225 million of its cash balances from Signature Bridge Bank “to a large money center bank on March 13.” The new bank was not identified.
Signature Bank was shut down by New York State officials due to concerns about its leadership and problems with cryptocurrency. It is now under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) as receiver.
Meanwhile, UWM told the SEC that, on March 20, it had entered into a new credit agreement with Goldman Sachs Bank USA for a $500 million credit facility “to finance the origination, acquisition, or holding of certain mortgage servicing rights.”
The facility is collateralized by the mortgage servicing rights owned by UWM for loans pooled in a securitization by Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae), the company said.
Rocket Cos., parent of Rocket Mortgage, also recently filed a document with the SEC to disclose that it “does not hold cash deposits or securities at Silicon Valley Bank” — which collapsed on March 10 and also is in receivership by the FDIC — or Signature Bank, “and has no business relationship with — or direct exposure too — either bank.”
The filing, dated March 13, also states that Rocket’s corporate cash accounts are held “with large global money center banks,” and that its warehouse line providers also are all with large global money center banks or their affiliates.
The filing adds that Rocket’s client escrow funds “are held in fully insured deposit accounts with large global money center banks.”
UWM, Guild Mortgage, and PennyMac have also filed similar statements about SVB and Signature Bank with the SEC.
