Goldman considers sale of Litton Loan Servicing: Report

Goldman Sachs (GS) is considering a sale of its mortgage servicing division Litton Loan Servicing, according to a story in the Financial Times Friday. A spokesman for Goldman said the investment bank did not have an official comment. Litton services more than $9.7 billion in mortgages with an overall delinquency rate of 43% as of 2009, according to an outlook from Standard & Poor’s earlier in the year. The rumor of a Litton sale had been bouncing around for a few weeks, a sign that Goldman does not want to grow the business and may want out, a source in the servicing industry told HousingWire. In October, Goldman admitted there were “process issues” with foreclosures handled by Litton. The company halted 23,000 foreclosures to sort out affidavits that were signed without a review of the documentation, one of several servicers including Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM), to do so. Goldman purchased Litton for a reported $500 million from Credit-Based Asset Servicing and Securitization, or C-BASS, in 2007. C-BASS, which purchased and serviced subprime and Alt-A mortgages during the housing bubble filed for bankruptcy in November 2010. The last major servicer sale was the Ocwen Financial Corp. (OCN) purchase of HomEq Servicing from Barclays Capital, a deal that closed in September. Write to Jon Prior.