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52 | Th e M Rep o RT SERVICING The laTesT Ocwen to Sell $9.6 Billion of Servicing Rights to Green Tree The Green Tree deal follows recent agreements to sell MSRs to JpMorgan and Nationstar. O cwen Loan Servicing, a subsidiary of Ocwen Financial Corporation, signed an agreement in principle in March to sell its mortgage servicing rights on a $9.6 billion portfolio to Green Tree Loan Servicing. According to Ocwen, the portfolio consists of approximately 55,000 perform- ing loans owned by Freddie Mac. The transaction is subject to approval by Freddie Mac and its conser- vator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), as well as other custom- ary conditions. Ocwen reported it expected the transaction to close by the end of April, and expected the loan servicing to transfer in May. "We are pleased with the progress we are making on executing our plan," Ocwen CEO Ron Faris said. "Over the next several months, we expect to generate proceeds of at least $650 million from sales and transfers of mortgage servicing rights. We are also committed to ensuring a smooth and accurate transfer of information to the buyers of these mortgage servicing rights." This will be the third multi-billion dollar sale of an agency MSR portfolio announced by Ocwen in the last two months. Ocwen's announcement of the agreement with Green Tree came just one day after reports surfaced that JPMorgan Chase was the pre- viously unidentified buyer in Ocwen's sale of a portfolio of 277,000 performing loans owned by Fannie Mae with a total unpaid principal balance of $45 billion. In February, Ocwen announced it intended to sell the MSR on a portfolio of approximately 81,000 performing residential loans owned by Freddie Mac with a total principal balance of about $9.8 billion to Dallas, Texas-based Nationstar. At the time of the deal with Nationstar, Faris said the transaction might be only the beginning of MSR transactions between the two companies. Atlanta-based Ocwen, the largest non-bank, non- government mortgage servicer in the nation, has endured a tumultuous year of extensive regulatory trouble and scrutiny that resulted in multimillion dollar settlements in both New York and California, as well as the departure of its founder and chairman, Bill Erbey. Ocwen also endured ratings downgrades by Fitch Ratings and Morningstar Credit Ratings since the first of the year and was terminated from a mortgage servicing deal involving two bonds in late February by Wells Fargo, the trustee for the bonds, amid speculation that the ratings downgrades had triggered defaults in the mortgage bonds. Faris announced in a note to stakeholders early in February that he expected the firm's earnings to take a loss based on mounting regulatory pressures, expenses, and ratings downgrades. "We are pleased with the progress we are making on executing our plan." — Ron Faris, Ocwen CEO Is transparency the key to compliance? To us, transparency means providing real- time visibility into loan status and servicing performance. Learn more at bsifinancial.com/transparency The new standard for performance. 972.347.4350 | sales@bsifinancial.com Licensed by the Department of Business Oversight under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. NMLS #38078