Stearns snaps up stake in Texas-based lender

Stearns Lending has entered into an agreement to acquire an equity interest in Texas-based Certainty Home Loans, the company has announced.

Certainty’s current ownership “will continue to hold a significant share of the equity” after the closing, Stearns said. The Certainty executive team will continue to be led by Jim Clapp as president and Doug Casbon as executive vice president and national production manager. Certainty will continue to operate under the same name, Stearns said.

Certainty was founded in 2000 as Starkey Mortgage and launched a rebrand and name change in October 2017. Last year, Certainty originated $1.4 billion in residential loans.

“Certainty has a long track record of success and has a retail profile that is a strong complement to the existing Stearns retail platform,” said David Schneider, CEO of Stearns Lending. “We believe that combining the retail platform of Certainty with Stearns’ industry-leading technology, direct access to capital-markets expertise, and operational excellence will produce tremendous synergies that will benefit both companies. This structure leverages the experience Stearns has with its current joint-venture business model, which currently operates under 10 different brands across the country.”

“The partnership with Stearns Lending brings together like-minded companies with strong leadership teams committed to operational excellence and focused on the core value that people and relationships are powerful tools in achieving success,” Clapp said. “This partnership allows Certainty Home Loans to further accelerate our growth plans by leveraging Stearns’ best-in-class technology platform to streamline and improve interactions with partners, customers and each other while staying true to our brand promise of providing confident closings.”

The transaction is expected to close by Aug. 31, pending regulatory approval. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

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