PHH Receives Termination Fee from Blackstone

On the heels of a failed $1.8 billion sale of its mortgage and auto finance operations, PHH Corporation said late Friday that it had received a $50 million reverse termination fee from a subsidiary of the Blackstone Group LP. PHH had requested the fee after a Blackstone afflilate failed to obtain debt financing needed to purchase the company’s mortgage assets from General Electric as part of a multi-party deal. “We share PHH’s disappointment that this transaction was not able to be completed,” said Chinh Chu, senior managing director at Blackstone. “PHH operates one of the premier mortgage banking platforms in the country, and they have demonstrated impressive stability and resilience in light of the turbulent market conditions affecting their industry. “It is especially regrettable that, even for a company of PHH’s quality, acquisition financing for any part of the mortgage sector was unavailable as a result of the sub-prime crisis.â€? For more information, visit http://www.phh.com. Disclosure: The author held no positions in PHH at the time this post was originally published.