ISGN buys loan-service unit in major expansion

ISGN Solutions Inc., a provider of technology and services to the mortgage industry, has completed an acquisition that doubled its workforce and is expected to triple its revenue, the Bensalem company said yesterday.

The deal for Fiserv Inc.'s Loan Fulfillment Services unit will add 870 employees and about $100 million in revenue to ISGN, which has made at least three other acquisitions since 2006 in a bid to provide a full range of services to the mortage industry.

That brings employment at privately held ISGN to 1,700 and annual revenue to $150 million. At its headuarters, ISGN employs 20 to 25.

When ISGN management started building the company through acquisitions three years ago, the goal was to establish "end-to-end solutions, so as the downturn happens we can maintain our customer base and our revenue base and grow it, rather than riding it" down, said Niraj Patel, group president of ISGN.

In rapid succession, ISGN, backed by an Indian conglomerate and $25 million in venture capital, bought MortgageHub of Conshohocken in 2006, Fair Isaac's mortgage banking division in 2007, and Richmond Title Services in 2008. The company declined to say how much it spent on those acquisitions.

Those deals "helped us weather the downturn nicely," said Patel, who was chief information officer at the former GMAC Commercial Mortgage in Horsham.

The Fiserv acquisition, announced in September, gives ISGN "size and scale and a footprint that gets us to the next level," Patel said.

Patel said ISGN provides services to 11 of the biggest 20 mortgage originators and 12 of the largest 20 mortgage servicers. Its customers include GMAC unit Residential Capital in Fort Washington.

The Fiserv unit fills in key services that ISGN was lacking, such as appraisal management, mortgage processing, and default management, said Donald A. O'Neill, division president at ISGN.

The company's goal has been to be split between services that take place before the closing of a mortgage, such as gathering credit reports and title work, and services that occur after closing, such as collection of payments and working with borrowers who have fallen behind on payments. That way, the company can stay busy even when home sales falter.

"We want to be pretty evenly balanced as the market has ups and downs," O'Neill said.