Nationstar Mortgage Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: NSM) on Thursday announced net income of $7 million for the third quarter of 2017, but declined to address rumors of an impending sale.
The Coppell, Texas-based firm, which services reverse mortgages through its Champion arm, has been the subject of sale talks originally reported by Bloomberg and picked up by other news outlets. Majority owner Fortress Investment Group (NYSE: FIG) is reportedly accepting bids for Nationstar; Fortress, a New York City-based firm, is itself in the process of a takeover by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.
But Nationstar CEO Jay Bray warded off the line of questioning even before accepting input from participants in a Thursday morning conference call with shareholders.
“The company maintains a policy of not commenting on rumors or market speculation, so we’ll have no comments related to that,” Bray said.
Bray spent most of the call talking up Nationstar’s servicing profitability — which came in at 5 basis points for the quarter — and the size of its servicing portfolio, which currently sits at $533 billion among 3.3 million customers. Nationstar recorded $10.3 billion in net reverse mortgage interests for the quarter, down from $10.6 billion in the second quarter.
The servicer also noted that it terminated a relationship with an unnamed subservicer and launched its own Home Equity Conversion Mortgage servicing system, leading to some duplicative staffing costs during the third quarter of 2017.
Nationstar also formally boarded a portfolio of HECMs purchased in December 2016, Bray said.
The company recently underwent a major rebrand, dubbing its client-facing operations as “Mr. Cooper” in an attempt to put a personal face on the world of mortgage servicing and originations. That effort did not include the Champion brand, which will retain its name going forward.
Nationstar’s stock dropped 1.96% in Thursday’s trading, closing at $19.04 per share.
Written by Alex Spanko
