Approval by bank regulators will allow Cornerstone to “significantly expand” product and service offerings to hundreds of thousands of customers and referral sources nationwide.
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Houston-based independent mortgage lender Cornerstone Home Lending is moving forward with plans to become a bank, with regulators signing off on a planned acquisition and merger with a century-old community bank.
Cornerstone — not to be confused with Washington, D.C.-based Cornerstone First Financial, which was acquired in February by end-to-end real estate platform Fathom Holdings — announced plans to acquire The Roscoe State Bank in June 2021.
“This combination of two great teams will allow Cornerstone to significantly expand product and service offerings to our hundreds of thousands of customers and referral sources throughout the country,” said Cornerstone Chairman and CEO Marc Laird in a statement at the time.
Now that it’s obtained all the necessary approvals from bank regulators, Cornerstone said Wednesday it expects the transaction to close by Oct. 1, “subject to completion of the remaining customary closing conditions.”
The Roscoe State Bank was established in 1906 in Roscoe, Texas and operates branch offices in Sweetwater and Bastrop, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).
After the merger, the resulting company will be known as Cornerstone Capital Bank. With more than $380 million in consolidated capital and $1.5 billion in consolidated assets, its formation is “the highest initially capitalized new bank in Texas history,” Cornerstone said.
The bank will provide services through three business segments: Mortgage lending and servicing, commercial and retail banking and institutional banking.
Marc Laird
“Our experience as a technology innovator will create a category-defining experience that will expand our scope of services to customers, complement and diversify our business, and lower our cost of funds,” Laird said of the merger. “Additionally, we plan to add seasoned commercial bankers to complement our existing team of mortgage lending professionals and offer more products and services to our customers.”
Founded in 1988, Cornerstone Home Lending is licensed in 40 states and sponsors 475 mortgage loan originators working out of 110 branch locations, according to the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry.
In April, Cornerstone announced an initiative to bring its mortgage loan servicing in-house, using software provided by Black Knight Inc. to collect payments on new loan originations.
Last year another nonbank mortgage lender and servicer Ocwen Financial Corp., continued a strategy of building its loan servicing portfolio by acquiring the correspondent lending business of Texas Capital Bank to build subsidiary PHH Mortgage’s correspondent lending business.
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