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BAC Mulls Over Buying $9B Residential Mortgage Loans From TD

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Bank of America Corp. (BAC - Free Report) plans to purchase a portfolio of residential mortgage loans worth $9 billion from Canada-based The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD - Free Report) . This was reported by Bloomberg on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Rationale Behind BAC’s Loan Takeover From TD

Bank of America aims to strengthen its loan portfolio with high-quality loans as the targeted portfolio consists of jumbo mortgages from U.S. homeowners with relatively high credit scores. Borrowers taking out these jumbo loans tend to be wealthy and have prime credit ratings.

Jumbo mortgages exceed the size limit of conventional loans bought by government-backed entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, thus making them ineligible for government-supported programs.

Tighter regulations known as Basel III Endgame, which required banks to hold more capital against residential mortgages, are now expected to be eased or abandoned. This mitigates the financial strain on banks, enabling them to expand in mortgage lending. Hence, BAC is likely to have shown interest in acquiring the jumbo mortgage loan portfolio from TD.

On the other hand, TD is reducing its U.S. retail assets by roughly 10% by restructuring its balance sheet to adhere to the $434 billion limit set by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). This cap was imposed by the OCC last year following the bank's guilty plea for failing to prevent money laundering by drug cartels and other criminal activities. This loan portfolio offloading is a part of ongoing restructuring.

The deal has not yet been finalized, and discussions are ongoing.

Over the past six months, BAC and TD have risen 22.3% and 5.1%, respectively.
 
Currently, BAC carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), while TD has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Similar Action by Another Finance Firm

In December 2024, Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. (BAM - Free Report) purchased a diverse pool of performing commercial real estate mortgage loans from Valley National Bancorp. (VLY - Free Report) .

BAM bought the loan pool at a discount of roughly 1% to par value, with VLY retaining customer-facing servicing responsibilities.

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