Although growing its volume of loans over the past year, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) has been plagued with a number of self-inflicted wounds that may have severely impacted its share price while enriching its primary owners, Mat Ishbia and his family. Now, Ishbia appears to be teaming up with his friend Anthony Casa to build an enterprise of mortgage originators to compete against the independent broker channel he claimed to support.
Ishbia’s wealth – on paper – is closely tied to the value – on paper – of UWM. And with the precipitous fall in UWM shareholder value, Ishbia’s fortune has dropped as well. Falling nearly in half from over $13 billion a year ago to a still impressive, yet much smaller, $7 billion today. Ishbia, however, has been able to make some of his wealth liquid by pulling money out of the company. Holding the vast majority of the voting shares of UWM ($UWMC), Ishbia convinced the company’s board to pay a 10 cent per quarter dividend – essentially creating a multi-million dollar quarterly annuity for himself.
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