A pending sale of Litton Loan Servicing LP will mark the third parent the servicer has had during the past five years.
The deal was disclosed Monday in a public filing by Ocwen Financial Corp.
Ocwen, which the filing says is based in Atlanta, reached an agreement Sunday to acquire the servicer from The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
The $264 million all-cash transaction includes interest-only servicing strips now owned by Goldman, Sachs & Co. Ocwen will also pay $337 million to retire some of Litton’s outstanding debt on an existing advance facility that is currently provided by a Goldman Sachs affiliate.
Ocwen will enter into a new facility to finance approximately $2.47 billion of servicing advances associated with the business. Goldman Sachs provided a term sheet for a $2.1 billion servicing advance facility that will cover all of the servicing advances outstanding as of the closing date.
Other servicing advance commitments are outstanding from The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, Barclays Bank PLC and Bank of America, N.A. In addition, Barclays has committed to provide a senior secured term loan facility of $575 million in connection with the acquisition.
Litton Mortgage Servicing Center was launched in 1988 by Larry B. Litton Sr. The Houston-based company was founded as a provider third-party sub-servicing for distressed mortgages.
Litton was acquired by Credit-Based Asset Servicing and Securitization LLC in 1996, then sold to Goldman Sachs in late 2007 as C-BASS descended into bankruptcy.
Litton says it currently employs more than a thousand people.
Litton serviced $41.2 billion as of March 31. Mortgages are serviced from offices in Dallas and Houston.
As of Dec. 31, 2010, Ocwen’s residential servicing portfolio was $73.9 billion.
The acquisition needs to close by Nov. 1, though it can be extended to Jan. 1, 2012, if either party fails to obtain required regulatory approvals.
