Wells Fargo & Co said on Wednesday that it would sell Ocwen Financial Corp the right to collect payments on 184,000 home loans representing roughly 2 percent of its residential portfolio. The total principal balance on the loans is $39 billion. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.The sale of the servicing rights comes as new companies like Atlanta-based Ocwen, which focuses on collecting payments on residential and commercial mortgages, have driven up demand for these assets.The higher prices make it more attractive to sell some of the rights for both financial and risk management reasons, Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Tim Sloan told investors at a November conference.Sloan also said that any sale would focus on customers who use Wells Fargo only to service their mortgages. The San Francisco-based bank neither made nor owned the underlying mortgages in Wednesday's deal.
Ocwen Financial Corporation is a financial services holding company. Shares of OCN fell by 0.19% or $-0.098/share to $50.35. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $34.10 and as high as $60.18. On average, 1926890 shares of OCN exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 872471.
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