A New Era Starts for Fidelity National’s Mortgage Services Business

Those with any history in the mortgage servicing business, or capital markets, likely know the name Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) — the FIS logomark has been a mainstay at numerous industry events during the past five years, with the sprawling mortgage services company providing nearly every technology and service imaginable to pretty much every facet of the mortgage industry. Starting today, the company will officially begin its real-life existence as a separate publicly-traded company, Lender Processing Services, Inc. Company executives rang the Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning, underscoring the start of a new era for the mortgage services provider. LPS shares began trading on a when-issued basis on June 24; the company said in a press statement Wednesday that it expects to begin regular-way trading on July 3 under the “LPS” ticker. Many in the industry may not yet realize the substantial shift that comes with the spin-off of LPS: the new company owns the ubiquitous Mortgage Servicing Package platform, commonly called MSP. Fifty percent of all U.S. mortgages are serviced on the platform, by LPS’ own estimation, including seven of the nation’s top 10 servicers. Beyond that, the company’s foreclosure and related services outsourcing business is among the most dominant in the residential default management space; the company owns roughly 40 percent of the market for outsourced foreclosures, according to estimates compiled by Housing Wire. And the company offers a wide range of origination-centric solutions as well, including the SiteXdata platform known to many brokers, as well as a range of applied analytics used by MBS dealers and banks to manage portfolios of loans or mortgage-backed securities. While company officials did not respond to an request for comment by the time this story was published, it appears that the new company intends to wholly rebrand its service offerings around the new LPS brand. It’s not clear what other product re-organization efforts, if any, might be tied to the spin-off. For more information, visit www.lpsvcs.com. Disclosure: The author held no positions in LPS when this story was originally published. HW reporters and writers follow a strict disclosure policy, the first in the mortgage trade.