An affiliate of Newcastle Investment Corp. – a publicly traded REIT – has agreed to pay $43.7 million to Nationstar Mortgage in exchange for receiving 65% of the interest payments on a $9.9 billion pool of MSRs.
The sale marks one of the first ever MSRs investments by a REIT, according to industry officials familiar with the transaction.
The sale agreement was signed Dec. 8, but Nationstar – which is controlled by Fortress Investment Group (FIG) – bought the $9.9 billion of receivables on Sept. 30.
Sources say the MSRs were tied to Freddie Mac loans that were once serviced by Bank of America.
The sale agreement notes that Newcastle will receive its cash flow on the MSRs only after “payment of a fixed base servicing fee per loan” to Nationstar, which is the servicer of the loans.
Newcastle and Nationstar are already related, in a way. Fortress’ co-founder and co-chairman is Wesley R. Edens, who also serves as chairman of Newcastle. (FIG is publicly traded too.)
In a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing, where the deal was disclosed, Nationstar is described as being an affiliate of Fortress, which is also Newcastle’s manager.
Wednesday morning telephone calls placed to Newcastle and Nationstar had not been returned at press time.
