Subprime mortgage servicing specialist Nationstar Mortgage could price an initial public offering of its stock in the coming week, according to a source familiar with the deal.
Company officials hit the road recently to gauge interest. A spokesman for Fortress Investment Group (FIG), which currently owns Nationstar, would not comment.
The Texas-based servicer filed for an IPO in May with plans to raise $400 million and renewed the effort in January.
Shares are expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol NSM.
Nationstar handled more than 500,000 subprime mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of roughly $90 billion as of June 30, according to Standard & Poor’s.
Like competitors such as Ocwen Financial Corp. (OCN), the company boosted its portfolio since the housing downturn. At the end of 2008, Nationstar serviced $21 billion in home loans.
The delinquency ratio on its portfolio declined to roughly 12% in June from a peak of 22% in December 2009, according to S&P.
The servicer avoided consent orders with federal regulators and the state attorneys general. But it assembled an attorney network committee to oversee how its attorneys and vendors manage foreclosures.
Nationstar spent much of 2011 automating loss-mitigation decisions and tweaking models to fit private-label mortgage pooling and servicing agreements. The company will be subject to supervision by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a nonbank entity.
