GMAC Mortgage LLC saw several of its mortgage servicer ratings downgraded by Fitch Ratings after its parent company, Residential Capital, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday.
Fitch said the downgrades were issued in direct response to ResCap’s bankruptcy filing. GMAC Mortgage’s servicer ratings were already on negative watch when word of the bankruptcy came down.
“Fitch does not expect the downgrade of GMAC Mortgage’s primary and special servicer ratings to affect the RMBS ratings at this point. On April 19, Fitch reviewed all transactions that are serviced by GMAC Mortgage and placed 157 classes on ratings watch negative. These classes were identified as being at risk for a rating revision due to the increased risk of a servicer disruption.”
The ratings downgraded included GMAC’s prime product rating, the servicer rating for its Alt-A product, as well as the servicer ratings for its subprime, HLTV and HELOC products. The company’s subservicer and special servicer ratings also were downgraded by Fitch.
All of the ratings were moved from ‘RPS3’ to ‘RPS4.’ On the Fitch scale, one is the highest rating and five is the lowest, making the recent downgrade one that puts the GMAC servicer rating closer to the bottom of the ratings scale.
On Monday, Nationstar Mortgage Holdings ($15.69 0%) a servicer based in Texas, paid $700 million to acquire $374 billion in mortgage servicing rights from ResCap. Included in the deal are $201 billion in primary servicing rights and $173 billion in subservicing contracts.
