Tag Archives: Ocwen Financial

Ocwen Financial Corporation, one of the country's largest non-bank mortgage servicers, announced the appointment of Alan J. Bowers as a new independent director to the firm's Board of Directors, according to an announcement from Ocwen.

In a report filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday, NMS Monitor Joseph A. Smith, Jr., reported the results of the retesting for Q1 2014 and also outlined several actions Ocwen has taken to improve its internal review group (IRG), which Smith has been investigating since May 2014.

"I am proud of what we have accomplished as far as managing the business through this difficult transition period. We made great progress on our asset sale strategy, have returned to profitability and continue to generate substantial operating cash flow," said Ron Faris, President and CEO of Ocwen. "However, I am not satisfied with only making $34 million in the quarter. We intend to do better."

The loans being offered in the pool are deeply delinquent and are geographically diverse. All the loans in the pool are currently being serviced by Ocwen Financial. Bids are due from qualified bidders for the pool on May 20 and the sale is expected to settle sometime in July.

In what was Ocwen's second report on consumer relief under the NMS, the Atlanta-based servicer reported that through the end of the fourth quarter in 2014, 21,257 borrowers had completed first-lien modifications and benefited from $1.9 billion in consumer relief.

This will be the second time in as many months that Ocwen has announced an MSR sale on an Agency portfolio of residential loans to Dallas, Texas-based Nationstar. In February, Ocwen announced its intention to sell the MSR on a portfolio of about 81,000 performing residential loans owned by Freddie Mac with a UPB of about $9.8 billion to Nationstar.

In February, an independent study found many of Ocwen’s servicing business was "effective," according to the letter. The research, conducted by Morgan Stanley’s RMBS strategy team, stated, "Whether a borrower first went delinquent while being serviced by Ocwen, or fell delinquent and was then transferred to Ocwen, we find that these borrowers are more likely to be in their homes today than if the MSRs were held elsewhere."

According to Ocwen, the portfolio consists of approximately 55,000 performing loans owned by Freddie Mac. The transaction is subject to approval by Freddie Mac and its conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), as well as other customary conditions. Ocwen reported that it expects the transaction to close by April 30, 2015, and expects the loan servicing to transfer in May 2015.

In an update on its website dated March 2, Ocwen announced that it had "signed a letter of intent with a buyer on the sale of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) on a portfolio consisting of approximately 277,000 performing Agency loans owned by Fannie Mae with a total unpaid principal balance of approximately $45 billion." In that March 2 update, Ocwen wrote that the transaction was "subject to a definitive agreement, approvals by Fannie Mae and FHFA and other customary conditions, Ocwen expects the transaction to close by mid-year and the loan servicing to transfer over the course of the second half of 2015."

Ocwen Financial Corp. found trouble in New York last year when a top regulator's investigation revealed that the servicer had sent erroneously dated correspondence to about 7,000 borrowers. Over the weekend, however, Ocwen made positive news in New York when it teamed with Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City to reach out to aid struggling homeowners who were at risk of foreclosure.