The Capital Markets Cooperative (CMC) has formed a strategic partnership with with WL Ross & Co.
According to a release from CMC, private equity funds that are affiliated with WL Ross agreed to make a strategic investment in CMC, and WL Ross will be investing considerably more capital in the future.
CMC, a mortgage capital markets firm, has a national client base of banks and mortgage companies that originate over $25 billion in mortgages annually. CMC assists its clients by increasing their revenues and reducing the risks and costs that are associated with mortgage origination.
The CMC trading desk and cooperative services operations facilitate the sale of mortgages to the secondary mortgage market. WL Ross is the majority owner of American Home Mortgage Servicing, which services over $85 billion of mostly nonprime mortgages. It is also a minority investor in several domestic banks.
CMC will deploy the WL Ross investment to expand its platform and to produce enhanced liquidity, execution and flexibility for CMC's members and investors.
The collective effort of the CMC client base will continue to create extraordinary opportunities for its members that are often unattainable individually, effectively "changing the rules."
"The superior mortgage origination quality of the CMC client base and the significant resources and market expertise of WL Ross create a winning combination that will be tough to beat," said Tom Millon, CEO, president, and founder of CMC. "We are excited to expand our firm and drive additional value to our member-clients with such a capable partner as WL Ross."
"We have been very impressed by Tom Millon, his CMC team, and their strong network of partner financial institutions," said Wilbur Ross, chairman and CEO of WL Ross. "We look forward to working with CMC to expand the services that they can provide its partner institutions."
Mark Gorman and Lindi Sabloff from Hidden River Capital were the exclusive financial advisors to CMC on this deal.
WL Ross & Co. is a private equity investment firm founded in 2000 and led by Ross.
