Capital One To Sell $17B Of Mortgages & Resume Share Buyback

As part of its efforts to do away with less profitable businesses, Capital One (NYSE:COF) will sell roughly $17 billion of first and second lien mortgages to DLJ Mortgage Capital Inc., a subsidiary of Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN) Group AG (NYSE:CS) . The deal, expected to close later this quarter, is expected to result in one-time gain for Capital One.

Notably, in November 2017, Capital One had announced its intention to stop issuing residential-mortgage loans and home-equity lines of credit. The primary reasons cited included higher interest rates and slowdown in mortgage originations.

R. Scott Blackley, Chief Financial Officer of Capital One, said, “Strong market demand enabled us to negotiate and sign this complex transaction more quickly than we thought possible.”

Now, Capital One expects to start buying back shares under its 2017 amended capital plan (authorization to repurchase up to $1 billion worth of shares) through the end of second-quarter 2018. The company, in December 2017, had announced a reduction in its share repurchase authorization owing to implementation of the new tax law.

Following the announcement of sale of mortgage portfolio and expectation of resumption of share repurchases, shares of Capital One gained 1.4% from the prior day’s closing as investors seem to be happy with these developments.

Of late, Capital One is undertaking several streamlining initiatives to focus on profitable businesses. In sync with this, the company announced the sale of its retail brokerage accounts to E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:ETFC) in January while the divestiture of its trust and asset management business to Hancock Holding Company’s (NASDAQ:HBHC) subsidiary was announced in December 2017.

These efforts are expected to boost Capital One’s financial performance. Further, strength in credit card and online banking businesses positions the company well for long-term growth.

Also, the shares of Capital One have rallied 2.4% over the last six months against industry’s decline of 0.3%.



Currently, Capital One carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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