Guild Holdings Company (NYSE:GHLD) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Richard Shane: Got it. Okay. But it was – this is obviously – we know this because you didn’t suddenly find $17.4 million of cash. So this was capitalization presumably of the MSR. So – and that’s – I assume the line item within the balance sheet where we see that. So when we look at the numbers, it looks like you retained – the other thing that’s happening, and this may be related to the acquisitions, your retention rate on Servicing, has historically been targeted in the 90s. When you made acquisitions, it’s dropped as you brought platforms that were sellers – net sellers of MSR on and you’ve reworked their relationships. But this quarter was actually pretty much the lowest we’ve seen at 80% retained. Is that related to acquisition? Or is that related to the comment that we heard about enhancing liquidity on the balance sheet?

Terry Schmidt: Really neither. It’s just we look at the – how we value the servicing asset and what a service released correspondent would pay us for that asset. And we were in an environment this last quarter where the pricing was pretty aggressive. And so we took advantage of that, and that is basically all that happened.

Richard Shane: Got it. Okay. That makes sense. And presumably, that environment is persisting. I guess the one thing that I would anecdotally say contravenes that a little bit is that we’ve heard from bulk purchasers of MSR that because there is so much dislocation amongst the originators that it’s actually a very compelling time for them to be buying an MSR, they find it particularly attractive from a rate perspective.

Terry Schmidt: I agree with your point, Rick, that is correct. But I think you’ve still got these correspondents that have capacity issues and are being pretty aggressive at getting cash, just getting additional loans to fill the cost to originate these loans. So we still are – we’re still as an industry shedding the capacity and so that’s really more of the driver in my opinion.

Richard Shane: Okay. Got it. Thank you guys very much.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from Don Fandetti with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Donald Fandetti: It sounds like the Q4 gain on sale margin would be in the 330 range, but that’s still well below your historical in the high 3s. Do you see that trending up as we move into 2024? Is there enough capacity coming out of the industry or volume so low that you think that’s kind of the range that we should be looking for?

Amber Kramer: We don’t provide guidance going forward, but I will say that we’re not seeing any changes occurring right now. I think volume is just going into a very seasonally slow fourth quarter on top of these inventory issues, we’re not going to see any changes. And at this point, we don’t know when the market will turn in 2024. We’re hoping that it’s at some point within the year, but it’s hard to say.

Donald Fandetti: Got it. And where are you in the acquisition cycle? Are you still seeing opportunities to where you think there could be more deals into 2024?

Terry Schmidt: Our pipeline is still very strong. It seem like things slowed down a little bit in the summer months, but it’s picking up again. So we do anticipate that we’ll still be in the market to do additional acquisitions going forward and very similar to what we’ve done this year. It’s pretty active still.

Donald Fandetti: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: And our next question will come from Trevor Cranston with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Trevor Cranston: All right. Thanks. Follow up to the last question about the acquisition opportunities. Can you maybe talk about what kind of opportunities you’re finding to grow the business away from acquisitions, whether it be through adding employees from other companies that might not be in quite a stronger position as you guys or how you’re seeing growth opportunities away from the acquisition side? Thanks.