TAMPA, Florida — Long-troubled mortgage banking firm Walter Investment Management Corp. is selling off its insurance business to Assurant Inc. for $125 million.
The stock purchase agreement includes the sale of stock related to GTI Holdings Corp., which is the holding company of Walter Investment’s licensed insurance agency, Green Tree Insurance Agency Inc.
The sale comes after shares of Walter tumbled 67 percent in 2016 to make it the worst-performing local stock of the year.
“We are pleased to have executed the SPA with Assurant relating to the sale of our insurance business. This transaction is expected to reduce the complexity of our business operations and allow us to better focus on our process efficiency efforts to improve the performance of our core servicing and originations businesses,” Anthony N. Renzi, chief executive officer and president of Walter Investment, said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our relationship with Assurant.”
Under the agreement, Assurant will make potential future payments to Walter Investment up to $25 million.
Walter Investment, which is focused on servicing residential loans and reserve loans, has about 5,000 employees.
Shares were up 2 percent in early trading Wednesday.
