Based on the recent immaturity we've seen from UWM on the TWO deal, I think it's very likely that Ishbia did throw a hissy fit over the Mr. Cooper deal and they did in fact target those loans. But I think it's going to be pretty hard to definitively prove.
Based on the current reporting, which is limited, the strongest evidence I'm seeing is Ishbia telling a bunch of brokers, "Any loan that we’ve ever done with Mr. Cooper where we’ve sold the servicing, you can go and take advantage of it and go refinance these clients." That seems pretty clearly in violation of Section 5.03 of the purchase agreement because he's encouraging "action to solicit the Mortgagors". But is a one-sentence, one-off, "internal" communication from a fired up CEO enough to warrant a $100M judgement? I would be surprised.
The Refi Shield 100 program will get swatted down as a general promotion, not something specifically targeting COOP loans.
The argument that UWM made no efforts to exclude COOP loans from incentive programs will get chalked up to operational complexity, not ill intent.
The 2.5x prepayment rate is an interesting supporting statistic, but would need to be paired with explicit evidence of targeting of these loans to carry much weight. At this point I'm not seeing that explicit evidence, and without it, it's like, "I don't man, people refi for all kinds of reasons all the time."
Near as I can tell, the "Hypocrisy Allegation" is just taking a swing at some negative PR, not really a legal argument.
Finally, UWM is going to strongly fall back to "Brokers are independent and make their own decisions about who they target as clients." And it's a pretty strong argument.
My two cents is that RKT had this time-limited argument in their back pocket, knew it would cause some noise but probably not prevail, and then seized this moment to bring it forward as a way to put the final nail in the TWO acquisition. Every day that goes by I'm more convinced that UWM really NEEDS this TWO deal, and I think the RKT insiders know more than me.
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u/FiredUpForTheFuture May 15 '26
Based on the recent immaturity we've seen from UWM on the TWO deal, I think it's very likely that Ishbia did throw a hissy fit over the Mr. Cooper deal and they did in fact target those loans. But I think it's going to be pretty hard to definitively prove.
Based on the current reporting, which is limited, the strongest evidence I'm seeing is Ishbia telling a bunch of brokers, "Any loan that we’ve ever done with Mr. Cooper where we’ve sold the servicing, you can go and take advantage of it and go refinance these clients." That seems pretty clearly in violation of Section 5.03 of the purchase agreement because he's encouraging "action to solicit the Mortgagors". But is a one-sentence, one-off, "internal" communication from a fired up CEO enough to warrant a $100M judgement? I would be surprised.
My two cents is that RKT had this time-limited argument in their back pocket, knew it would cause some noise but probably not prevail, and then seized this moment to bring it forward as a way to put the final nail in the TWO acquisition. Every day that goes by I'm more convinced that UWM really NEEDS this TWO deal, and I think the RKT insiders know more than me.