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In the midst of financially difficult Q2 earnings for non-banking mortgage servicers, PennyMac Financial Services, Inc. reports a profitable net income of $74.3 million for the second quarter of 2016, on revenue of $207.8 million, according to a recent release from the company.
“Our second quarter financial performance reflects the significant opportunity in the current market environment and the substantial momentum in PennyMac Financial’s correspondent and consumer direct production activities,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Stanford L. Kurland.
According to the earnings report, pretax income was $84.3 million for Q2 with an increase of 180 percent from the first quarter. Likewise, this was the highest level on record for PennyMac Financial. This resulted in non-cash valuation losses on mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) sitting at $122.4 million, as well as partially offset gains from hedges and excess servicing spread (ESS) liability totaling $82.4 million. This was driven by a decline in interest rates and expectations for lower mortgage rates in the future. Results also included $5.1 million in servicing activity fee revenue related to PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust’s (PMT’s) sale of performing distressed loans.
“We achieved record quarterly earnings, even after the significant reduction in our MSR value driven by interest rate declines at the end of the quarter, and record production volumes in both our correspondent and consumer direct channels,” said Kurland. “Volumes in the mortgage origination market have increased in reaction to lower rates; however, industry capacity constraints are moderating the growth in market volumes and should contribute to a prolonged period of elevated origination volumes and margins.”
Although PennyMac saw a positive net income, the report shows that the servicing segment, including income from owned MSRs as well as subservicing and special servicing activities, posted a pretax loss of $21.0 million in the second quarter. This, though, was less that the pretax loss for Q1 of $39.5 million. Additionally, servicing segment revenues in the second quarter totaled $32.1 million, which was a reported 64 percentage increase from the first quarter. This was primarily due to a 52 percent increase in net loan servicing fees.
Cumulatively, servicing segment expenses totaled $53.1 million. This represented a 10 percent decrease from the first quarter, primarily due to a reduction in the provision for credit losses resulting from improved loss mitigation outcomes on certain defaulted government-insured loans.
Additionally, the total servicing portfolio reached $171.7 billion in unpaid principal balance at June 30, 2016, an increase of 4 percent from the prior quarter end primarily resulting from the acquisition of government-insured loans in correspondent production and from consumer direct lending activities.
“PennyMac Financial’s leading position in mortgage banking and our best-in-class, scalable operating platform make us uniquely positioned to capitalize on the opportunity,” said Kurland.
