Ron Faris
Analyst · KBW. Your line is now open
Good morning and thank you for joining us today. There is a lot to discuss, but first let me make a couple of opening remarks about the preliminary financial results for the first quarter. In the quarter we recorded a $33 million loss which is a $79 million improvement versus the first quarter of last year. Obviously reporting a loss is not where we want to be, but it is worth noting the significant improvement. The quarter was pretty straight forward. One notable item was an $8 million litigation reserve related to our legacy securities class action litigation claim. This case has not however settled and any settlement or final legal outcome could be materially different. We also continue to hold the $12.5 million reserve established last quarter during settlement discussions with the CFPB. However, as you know, the CFPB has filed legal action now and any settlement or finding by the court could be materially different than this amount. We are vigorously defending ourselves in both of these cases. Except for the $8 million reserve I just mentioned the quarter was pretty clean and a bit better than we had anticipated. Despite the runoff in the portfolio our revenues were about flat to the prior quarter and we saw a strong modification performance. Our servicing business earned a profit of $3 million and our lending business earned a profit of $1 million. Also notable was the operating cash flow in the quarter. The business generated $86 million of cash from operating activities and we ended the quarter with $268 million of cash. We are not going to review the financials in detail this morning, but we have posted our traditional earnings slide on the Ocwen website for your review and you know where to reach Mike or me if you have any questions. We are operating in an obviously challenged sector and some of the other large nonbank servicers are similarly facing significant headwinds as they manage their businesses. I would like to assure you that I and the rest of my management team are focused on doing all we can to effectively manage our business through these challenging times and ultimately drive better financial performance. Next, let me touch upon the potential agreement we are working towards with New Residential. We are excited about the progress we have made in recent days that culminated in our respective announcements earlier this week. Significantly for shareholders this arrangement would solidify and strengthen what I consider to be an already strong relationship with our largest counterparty. As we announced, the agreement in principle would extend the relationship out to at least the end of 2022 and reduce the uncertainty around possible transfers resulting from potential servicer rating downgrades. Both of these points are contemplated in the transaction and will be positive for us should we reach a final agreement. Additionally, New Residential will take on direct ownership of the MSRs where they own the rights today and we will enter into a more traditional subservicing agreement. New Residential will also pay us an estimated $425 million in the transaction. Finally, when the deal is finally signed New Residential will pay us almost $14 million to become a 4.9% shareholder of Ocwen. While the balance sheet today reflects the current New Residential relationship as a net zero as the MSR is offset by financing liability, we don't expect to record a $425 million gain at the time of the transaction. As consents are received and MSRs transfer to New Residential we will receive the respective upfront cash payment. To account for this we would debit cash and credit deferred revenue which we expect will amortize income over the life of the subservicing contract. Going forward with this agreement in place we will have a lower monthly subservicing fee than we currently receive under the existing legacy HLSS agreements we've been operating under. I'll remind you that the existing HLSS agreements come to an end in stages between February and April 2020. While not precise, we expect that the implied annual subservicing fee to be approximately 13 basis points versus approximately 25 basis points today. We anticipate we will continue to receive TAM [ph] fees and most other traditional ancillary fees that we currently receive under the HLSS agreement. Since we are still working towards the definitive agreement terms are not final and there is no guarantee we will enter into an agreement. Therefore we won't be able to answer many questions related to the New Residential transaction. I think it is important to know that we have been in discussions with New Residential about this transaction for more than a month. We appreciate New Residential's continued support of the company regardless of what cycle we are in and we look forward to them becoming one of our larger shareholders. As time progresses and we move beyond some of our current restrictions, we believe that this relationship can grow further and benefit all the company's shareholders. Finally, I'd like to address the recent CFPB and state regulatory actions. Let me start first with the states. At this time 31 states have taken some form of action against us. We are attempting to work with all states both individually and potentially as a group to try to resolve their joint and individual concerns. While we hope to reach some agreement soon, there is no guarantee we will be able to do so. Where necessary we have filed certain notices and legal actions to protect our interests and frankly to provide us more time to work together towards resolution. If we are able to come to resolution with some or all the states we do expect that we will continue to be restricted from acquiring new bulk MSRs as we are today for some additional period of time. To date we believe we have taken the necessary steps to comply with the various state actions. This includes pausing for closure activity in two states which currently impacts less than 150 loans and curtailing or stopping certain loan origination activities in three states. Additionally, we are arranging to release servicing on new originations in 15 states. We currently don't believe the limitations we are placing on our origination activities will have a material impact on our future financial results, but we do expect our origination volumes to decline in the interim until we can reach some resolutions. The state's primary concerns are related to past servicing activity in our offshore locations relative to state licensing requirements, historical escrow reconciliations and our overall financial condition mostly based on multistate examination that covered the period from January 2013 to February 2015 and that was conducted in 2015. We continue to provide information requested by the state to help them better understand and resolve their concerns. We hope we will be successful in our efforts to move towards resuming more regular regulatory relations over time. I would highlight the progress and success we have had recently with both New York and California as evidence of our ability to do this. Moving on the CFPB allegations. To help you better understand the claims being made by the CFPB, I'd like to give you some examples of loans that we believe the CFPB has identified as having alleged inappropriate foreclosure sales. Looking at these examples and by reviewing customer files which the CFPB did not do during its investigation of Ocwen should make clear why we strongly disagree with the headline allegations. Example one, this loan was transferred to Ocwen for servicing in 2010 and is already in foreclosure and almost three years delinquent. In 2011 Ocwen provided the customer HAMP modification. This government-sponsored modification allows the consumer to resume payments, clear the delinquency and remain in the home. In other words it gave the borrower a second chance. Unfortunately, in late 2012, the consumer again stopped making payments. We attempted to contact the borrower numerous times with only limited success. In mid 2013, the consumer did engage with us about trying to do a deed in lieu of foreclosure. A deed in lieu is where the homeowner returns over the property and walked away from the debt similar to what occurs in a foreclosure sale. A deed in lieu of process is complicated because other liens on the property must clear before we can proceed. In contrast liens are generally automatically cleared in a foreclosure sale. We tried working with the borrower of the deed in lieu for over a year. However, the homeowner did not return the executed documents required to complete the process. Finally, in October 2014 the foreclosure sale was completed. At the time of the foreclosure sale the consumer was not living in the property and they had not made a house payment in over two years. Ocwen, over a period of seven years this homeowner made 26 out of 84 possible mortgage payments. Despite our efforts to meet facts the CFPB seems to believe that this foreclosure sale was not appropriate. We disagree. Another example of the loan where the CFPB seems to believe we foreclosed inappropriately was a loan that was modified three times between 2009 and 2013. Each time the payment was reduced with the last modification resulting in our customer benefiting from a monthly payment that was less than half of the original payment. This last modification was a share depreciation modification meaning that our customer also benefited from some amount of principal on their loan being forgiven. Unfortunately, following each modification our customer experienced financial difficulties and stopped making payments. Finally, in 2014 our customer pursued a deed in lieu. Ocwen actually tentatively approved the deed in lieu pending approval from the mortgage insurance company. In this case however, the mortgage insurance company rejected the deed in lieu and have Ocwen continue with foreclosure which occurred in late 2015. At the time of the foreclosure sale the loan was over two years delinquent. In other words over a six-year period Ocwen went above and beyond try to assist our customer having provided three modifications, principal reduction, payment reductions and even attempted deed in lieu. Had the CFPB reviewed the actual loan files we believe they would have concluded that our actions were not only proper, but above and beyond what is generally accepted as industry standard. When we say Ocwen cares, it really does mean something to us and we demonstrated that by the lengths to which we were willing to go to help this customer. In my final example, this loan was a loan that was transferred to Ocwen for servicing in 2011. At the time of transfer the loan appeared to be an investment property. Over the next couple of years Ocwen offered the borrower modifications on two separate occasions both on which included principal reductions. Unfortunately, the borrower never followed through. In the fall of 2014 our customer again reapplied for modification assistance and was approved for modification through HAMP. As with the prior two modification offers this third offer included discounting the principal balance this time by over $78,000. This third offer was made very close to scheduled foreclosure sale date and as a result we were unable to obtain court approval to delay the foreclosure sale. This happens. We did however, within the foreclosure sale such as last allowing the consumer to review the HAMP modification offer. In February 2015 the HAMP offer was withdrawn because we did not received any other trial payments or the signed modification agreement back from the customer. Eventually, the customer notified us that the property was vacant and they mailed us the keys after which we then completed the foreclosure sale. Ocwen received no payments during the three plus years we serviced the loan, but we did try hard to assist the customer. It makes no sense that the CFPB deems our actions to be inappropriate. These are tough examples. In each one a customer, a family was struggling to keep their home or investment property unsuccessfully. At Ocwen we have prided ourselves on our ability to work with homeowners in distress and to offer them modification solutions that not only help them remain in their home, but also provide better outcomes for RMBS investors that own the mortgage. Since 2008 we have completed over 735,000 modifications and we only pursue a foreclosure perhaps when we have exhausted all other options. As per the fourth quarter 2016 Making Home Affordable Program Performance Report by U.S. Department of the Treasury we have completed 60% more modifications as compared to the next highest servicer. We have completed over 50% of all modifications than the industry under the streamlined HAMP program. At Ocwen we strongly believe that helping homeowners is what we do. These are examples of why we believe we must defend our company and for that matter the customers who serve, who we serve and we have helped. We believe that the substantiate allegations in the suit are based primarily on the CFPBs broad analysis of data and its relying on isolated instances where Ocwen self identified ways where we can do better. A hallmark of a company with a robust risk and control infrastructure is that it provocatively self identifies opportunities for improvement enabling the company to cash potential issues in real time before their impact is felt. So, we intend to vigorously defend ourselves while staying committed serving our customers in the communities where we live. We believe that our servicing processes in systems are operating effectively, and third-parties have continued to confirm our effectiveness in performing to their expectations. You will know on slide seven through 17 we have highlighted several different independent third party reviews of our operations which we believe show strong and improving controls and effectiveness. I won’t dig deep in each one, but for the most part we are putting forward information from external parties, who in some form or another have audited us or evaluated us or even was or is a customer of the company. We think the facts speak for themselves. On slide seven and eight you can see the CFPB complaint data. Not only have the complaints drastically fallen, we have a lower complaint level for 1000 loans serviced and two very reputable peers who we believe are both looked to fund favorably by regulators. On slide nine, you can see our favorable solidified star ratings from our customers on customersfares.com. On slide 10 we are sharing our GSE annual audit results for the last couple of years. You can see for each of the agencies our performance has improved. On slides 11 and 12, we remind folks of the deep exhaustive third-party reviews that have been done inside our servicing business. These are firms that came into Ocwen with the express purpose to identify issues. In all cases we received positive marks. On slide 13, we shared an overview of the state exam history from 2016. It’s hard for me to reconcile this data with the actions that states took on April 20th. After providing almost 900 loan faults for review last year we received satisfactory or better ratings from seven of eight states. The last state issued a report with new ratings that identified preliminary findings dating back to 2013. These findings have long been remediated. On slide 14 and 15, we share some of the internal data management rigor as well as information on the control assessments done by our internal audit group which is independent from management and reports to the audit committee of the Board of Directors. And finally, we shared the results from the National Mortgage Settlement Testing. It would be appropriate to think of this as the CFPBs own monitor. Testing the metrics may be important as part of the 2013 National Mortgage Settlement. You can see the air rate on passing metrics is well below threshold levels. In fact in all four quarters in 2016 testing by our independent internal review group had concluded that there have been no identified tested metric failures. All of these reports individually and together show a strong and ever improving control of effective business environment one which is dedicated and focused on our customers and in particular struggling homeowners. Again, we think the facts speak for themselves. Let me summarize by saying that our first quarter performance was slightly better than we had anticipated, but we do need to evaluate the impacts of recent regulatory actions and what effect it will have on our financial results including our legal expenses. We believe the proposed but not finalized New Residential transaction is a significant vote of confidence from our largest counter party and a positive step towards eliminating uncertainty as to their longer term intentions relative to Ocwen. We intend to work with all state regulators to resolve their concerns. We intend to vigorously defend ourselves against the CFPB allegations. And most importantly, we intend to continue to help struggling homeowners as we have done in the past while also delivering better outcome for RMBS investors. Let me close with two things that the Ocwen team is very proud of. First, during the first quarter we received recognition by 2020 Women On Boards as a winning W. company for 2016. Winning company champion diversity which is something we take seriously and are very proud of. Lastly I received the following note from a customer the other day. This is why we do what we do. It goes Dear Ocwen, I am writing as a person not a company. I have read some negative things in the paper about Ocwen. I disagree. Since Ocwen began handling our mortgage we have received the help we needed when we needed it and from some of the kindest, most understanding people I have ever dealt with. I am sure if not for their great work and understanding my wife and I would have lost our home years ago. I pray for them and the wonderful work they do on a daily basis. A personal note to the people at Ocwen. May God continue to prosper you as you helped those of us who needed to remain in our homes. Signed, a grateful customer. Thank you. We will now open the call up for questions.