Situs, American Mortgage to Merge, Create Real Estate Tech and Advisory Giant
By Mack Burke June 19, 2019 7:00 am
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Situs Group Holdings Corporation and American Mortgage Consultants have agreed to merge the two firms, creating a remarkable combination of commercial and residential advisory offerings, Commercial Observer has learned.
The new company will be called SitusAMC and will provide data and advisory solutions “across the entire life cycle of commercial and residential debt and equity,” according to information from a company spokesperson. The merger is expected to close on June 28.
AMC CEO Michael Franco and Situs president and COO Nick Rudenstine will share the CEO title at SitusAMC. Situs CEO Steve Powel will become the new firm’s executive chairman.
“This transaction is the culmination of mutual interest and admiration between our two entities dating back to the fall of 2017,” Franco said in a statement. “We believe that SitusAMC [will] deliver unique and not replicable solution sets to our clients.”
Together, Situs and AMC will surpass $175 billion in assets under management and provide assessments on over $290 billion in real estate assets quarterly; and the new company will cover roughly 60 percent of the residential secondary market, private-label securitizations. SitusAMC will operate out of 27 offices across the globe, with 3,300 professionals, according to information from a company representative.
“The idea of matching two companies that can provide both residential and commercial debt life cycle support had not been done at any scale, and AMC was a unique compliment to Situs, which allowed this vision to come together,” Powel said in prepared remarks.
SitusAMC provides services for entities across the industry spectrum, from major financial institutions and pension funds to alternative lenders and secondary market guarantors. It will feature due diligence and underwriting services, servicing and asset management, claims management, valuations, mortgage servicing rights, whole loan brokerage and talent and technology solutions, including data extraction, indexing and remittance reconciliation, among many other tech offerings, according to a company representative.
“The scope and scale of SitusAMC services and technology offerings, combined with our unique vantage point on real estate markets, should put our firm in the best possible position,” Rudenstine said in a statement.
The two companies, separately, have been on a bit of a buying spree over the last couple of years.
In January last year, Situs announced its acquisition of MountainView Financial Solutions, a Denver-based valuation and brokerage platform.
After private equity firm Stone Point Capital bought a majority stake in AMC in April 2018, the company made a string of purchases in its push to become a one-stop-shop for secondary market players. AMC picked up Iowa-based The Barrent Group, a risk management services company, in July 2018, growing its presence in the Midwest, and also launched subsidiary TechEssential that same month.
Earlier this year, in January, it announced its purchase of St, Petersburg, Fla.-based Meridian Asset Services, which provides asset management and oversight services.
In March, it acquired String Real Estate Information Services, a company that provides title search outsourcing services.
And to cap it off, AMC purchased Buffalo, N.Y.-based MBMS, Inc. earlier this month, bolstering its access to services for those in the secondary market. MBMS’ products track collateral behind residential mortgages and also fund mortgage loan warehouses.
