It appears that Nationstar’s acquisition of the bankrupt Residential Capital Corp. is far from a done deal.
According to new reports, both Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company controlled by Warren Buffett, and Ocwen Financial have expressed interest in buying the nation’s fifth largest servicer.
A new report from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods—which gathers comments made at its recent mortgage finance conference—quotes Ocwen officials as saying “there is plenty of time and room for new bidders to emerge through the auction process.”
Investment banking officials told National Mortgage News that Ocwen, and others, have explored the idea of buying parts of ResCap’s $382 billion servicing portfolio.
Management at Ocwen believes that ResCap could potentially be split up and sold to several servicers, KBW says in its report.
Ocwen has an investment capacity of up to $600 million.
ResCap filed for bankruptcy protection in mid-May, signaling a reorganization and sale with Nationstar acting as the “stalking horse” bidder. Originally, the sale was expected to be completed by yearend 2012.
Nationstar, which went public recently, is controlled in part by Fortress Investment Group LLC. Fortress’ shares have been trading at just above $3 a piece recently.
Berkshire said in court papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York that it will offer better terms than Fortress and Ally. "Both offers will remain open for the court to approve and the debtors to execute on or before June 19," Berkshire says.
A month ago, mortgage advisors closely watching the ResCap deal, said they fully expected other bidders to emerge.
Berkshire has mostly stayed away from mortgage investments the past 15 years, and even dumped its stakes in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac years before problems their problems surfaced.
