Canadian real estate tech firm Voxtur Analytics Corp. has agreed to buy mortgage servicing rights trading platform Blue Water Financial Technologies for a cool $101 million.
Voxtur, which has been on a buying binge over the last few years, plans to combine Blue Water’s capital markets SaaS platform with its own constellation of real estate solutions.
“The integration of Blue Water into the Voxtur product suite strengthens our technology foothold and places us squarely in the capital markets arena,” said Voxtur CEO Jim Albertelli in a statement. “The collective expertise of the Blue Water technologists, data scientists, and asset managers who seamlessly integrate technology and trading expertise creates a unique opportunity for Voxtur in the secondary mortgage market. This acquisition will accelerate the evolution of Voxtur’s investments in technology and proprietary industry data into a resilient and dynamic growth platform.ʺ
Blue Water provides asset valuation, MSR distribution, MSR hedging and digital solutions to MSR investors and mortgage lenders. The company, led by Alan Qureshi, says its self-service technology is “able to replicate any investor pricing and modeling construct in real time to provide a unique solution tailored to its clients, including private equity investors and investment banks.”
Blue Water is controlled by Rice Park Capital Management, a private equity firm headquartered in Minneapolis. Qureshi will continue to lead Blue Water following the acquisition, Voxtur said.
By picking up Blue Water, Voxtur said it would expand its influence in the secondary mortgage market and accelerate its transition to a “pure-play technology provider in the North American mortgage market.”
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Voxtur acquired appraisal management company Anow last year for $30.5 million, and also has leading products in property valuation/appraisal, analytics and settlement services. Voxtur in July announced the rollout of two new desktop appraisal review products that comply with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines.
With the spike in mortgage rates over the last nine months, the MSR market has been on the rise. The volume of MSRs available for sale has been at historic levels over the first half of the year, though the market has pulled back on pricing in recent months, experts told HousingWire earlier this month.