THE LEAD
Three press releases. 36 hours. UWMC just put up a Joe DiMaggio-esque record for worst two-day stretch in mortgage M&A history.
Monday 8 AM: Two Harbors board rejects UWM's $12 bid in an 8-bullet teardown. Calls the Mizuho financing "conditional, not committed." Notes UWM's claimed 2-3 month closing timeline only works "if UWMC intends to disregard state regulatory requirements."
The TARGET company telling the BUYER that their timeline requires breaking state law. In writing. To the SEC.
Monday 4:51 PM: UWM responds. Headline: "UWMC Responds to TWO Board's Latest Failing for TWO Stockholders."
Yes, UWM publicly accused the board of the company they're trying to buy of "failing." The same board UWM was negotiating with four months ago.
They also wrote: "TWO Board Takes Three Days to Conclude $11.30 in Cash is Better Than $12.00 Cash Option."
Mat. Three days isn't slow. Three days is the TWO board reading your homework, finding it didn't show its work, and sending you back to your room. The board didn't fail at math. They graded yours.
Then Tuesday at 8 AM ET, the killing blow: CrossCountry drops their OWN press release. They titled it: "Setting the Record Straight."
When you have to title your press release "Setting the Record Straight," you're either an aggrieved Real Housewife or you're the company that just watched UWM publicly accuse a fiduciary board of failing at math.
CCM didn't just rebut. They grave danced on UWMC.
✔️ "$3.4 billion in committed financing" (vs UWM's "non-binding bridge that the lender can decline at sole and absolute discretion")
✔️ "27 of 53 regulatory approvals already in hand" (vs UWM's zero)
✔️ "This is UWM's first acquisition in its entire history"
✔️ "UWM previously stated TWO is 'effectively a melting ice cube'" (then quoted UWM saying TWO offers "no operational efficiencies"... and then explaining UWM is now bidding a premium for the melting ice cube with no synergies)
That last one is the dagger. UWM publicly said four months ago that TWO is a melting ice cube. They are now offering $12 per share to acquire that melting ice cube. Either UWM was lying then, or UWM is lying now.
Let's score the last 36 hours ...
Today’s 11 AM UWM earnings release call is going to be interesting.
CHART OF THE DAY
Holy CRAP is ChatGPT’s new image generator great! “Create awesome graph showing annual mortgage originations from 2000-2025.” 9 seconds to make this.
COS IN THE HOUSE!!
The keynotes keep rollin' in for OMBA Annual in Columbus OH June 14-16. And this is a fun one to announce, because his fingerprints are all over our organization.
It's Bill Cosgrove. CEO of Union Home Mortgage Corp. Owner of the Tampa Bay Rays. Former Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association President. Former Mortgage Bankers Association Chairman nationally. Cleveland-bred, Ohio-built, and one of our state's proudest business success stories.
Bill's had a heckuva couple years, acquiring three IMB's, growing market share for Union Home, and becoming one of the primary owners of the Rays.
And the perfect guy to kick this party off on Sunday before another big name keynote to be revealed shortly and a bad-ass opening recepton.
A guy who built one of the most resilient independent mortgage banks in the country, sitting on the table with a major league baseball team, telling Ohio's mortgage banking leaders what he sees coming next.
June 14-16. Columbus, OH. Don't be the person that lives in driving distance of central OH who misses this event. Details and reg can BE FOUND HERE!
Come to Columbus in mid-June. Leave smarter, more well-connected, and with lots of new fun things on your To-Do List.
DONT GET A FRENCHIE!
I left the room for 4 minutes.
Four. Minutes.
When I returned, the rug had been disemboweled, the penguin was deceased, and the perpetrator was standing exactly where you see him now, with the confidence of a man who has never once been held accountable for anything.
Meet the French Bulldog. The #1 dog in the US according to the AKC. I am here to tell you the American public has lost its mind & you should not get one.
Let me explain.
They are stubborn beyond comprehension. This dog has the negotiating posture of a hostage taker. When a Frenchie does not want to do something, you are not training him. You don't train a Frenchie. You negotiate. And he doesn't negotiate.
They are unapologetically self-centered. I've fed this dog every meal of his life. I have paid for his existence in ways I cannot describe. He would kill me in 1 second for half of a milkbone. Not a whole milkbone. Half.
They are food-obsessed in a way that crosses into mental illness. This dog has eaten:
✔️ An entire large container of Icebreakers gum, which contains xylitol, a lethally poisionous to dogs sugar substitute. Vet gave him a 25% chance to live. 7 blood transfusions & 8 days in the hospital later he made it.
✔️ Two gas grill briquettes, which sat in him for 36 hours before he threw them up sequentially in a scene more horrific than the ear scene in Reservoir Dogs. I will never unsee it.
✔️A poisonous frog. Foamed at the mouth for 30 minutes. Tried to eat a 2nd one the next day.
✔️Two picked-clean chicken wing bones. Did not chew. Inhaled.
The noises. I do not know how to describe the noises. Snoring. Snorting. Reverse sneezing. Wheezing. All day. All night. Forever.
The gas. Imagine a dog so flatulent that you can identify which room of the house he is currently in by smell alone. Now imagine that dog sleeping at the foot of your bed. Now imagine he is somehow proud of it. That is a Frenchie.
The teeth. His teeth point in directions teeth are not supposed to point. Some go up. Some go sideways & diagonally. The bottom row looks like a parking lot at a Phish concert.
The weather restrictions. This dog cannot be outside if it is over 73 degrees. He cannot be outside if it is under 40 degrees. He cannot be in direct sunlight. He cannot exert himself.
The trouble-seeking. This dog has a sixth sense for what he is not allowed to do. Tell him no. Watch him calculate. Watch him do it slower while making eye contact. He is not disobedient. He is making a point.
The Amazon driver hit list. This dog has bitten 5 different Amazon drivers, all of whom failed to adhere to the very clear note on our account: "Leave the package at the end of the driveway." This has resulted in 2 civil suits & 3 different homeowner's insurance policies.
He has no remorse.
The Frenchie is the #1 dog in America for the same reason heroin is popular. It is bad for you, it ruins your life & you cannot stop.
Do NOT get a French Bulldog.
Get a goldfish. Get a houseplant. Get a Roomba.
“I can do whatever I want and you’ll love me even more tomorrow.”
FUTURE PROOF YOUR COMPANY
For 20 years, your LOS has been a glorified database with a workflow on top. The next 24 months, it becomes something fundamentally different. Most lenders aren't ready.
The shift isn't another wave of point solutions. It isn't a smarter chatbot. It isn't another "AI-powered" feature you bolt onto your existing stack and pretend it's transformation.
The shift is agentic AI. And it's a fundamentally different architecture than anything mortgage technology has ever run on.
For the last decade, "AI in mortgage" mostly meant: a vendor sells you a tool that does ONE thing automatically. Document classification. Income parsing. Asset verification. You buy it. You integrate it. You hope the vendor doesn't get acquired. Repeat.
Agentic AI doesn't do ONE thing. It does the WHOLE STAGE. Document review, income calculation, asset verification, condition clearing, pre-funding QC. Not stitched-together tools. Autonomous agents handling entire workflow stages end-to-end, with humans in the loop only on exceptions.
The vendors who have actually built this are reporting 25-40% fulfillment cost reductions. PennyMac has been showing the math publicly. NAF appears to have made the same bet this week.
You can't run agentic AI on a legacy LOS. Not "it's hard." You literally cannot.
The data structures are wrong. Legacy platforms store loan data assuming humans will read it and click on it. Agentic AI needs structured, machine-readable source data, not PDFs of stacked stips uploaded six steps ago.
The integration points are wrong. Legacy APIs were designed for screen-scraping, not autonomous agents making 200 decisions per minute.
The workflow engine is wrong. Legacy engines assume humans push buttons in a fixed order. Agentic systems reason about state and act on policy. Two completely different architectural worldviews.
You cannot bolt the future onto a foundation built for the past.
Technology is changing, QUICKLY!
LINKS THAT DON’T SUCK
THE BIG PICTURE (THURSDAYS, 3 ET)
This Week’s Guests: MBA CMB Leadership - Melanie Coulton, Deb Jones, Tammie Gravlee
Hosted by Chrisman Media!
This Thursday at 3 PM ET on The Big Picture, Rob and I sit down with three of the most influential voices in MBA's CMB program: Melanie Coulton, Deb Jones, and Tammie Gravlee.
The CMB designation is the gold standard credential in mortgage banking. Earning it is brutal. Maintaining it matters. These three are the people shaping where the program goes next.
We're going to get into:
What the CMB designation actually signals to employers in 2026
How the curriculum has evolved as the industry has changed
Why the program has seen renewed interest from rising executives
What candidates underestimate about the journey
Where the next generation of CMB leaders is coming from
If you've been thinking about pursuing your CMB, if you've already earned it and want to know where the program is heading, or if you just want to hear three sharp industry leaders talk about what real mortgage industry credentialing looks like, block the time.
Upcoming guests below. Holy lineup, Batman!
May 7 - MBA CMB Leadership - Melanie Coulton, Deb Jones, Tammie Gravlee
May 14 - Kevin Peranio - Chief Lending Officer, PRMG
May 21 - Kate DeKay - CEO, Eustis Mortgage
May 28 - Varun Krishna - CEO, Rocket, Interim CEO at Redfin
June 4 - OPEN
June 11 - Glenn Strong - CEO, FirstTrust Home Loans
June 18 - Kathy Kraninger - Former CFPB Director, Current President & CEO of the Florida Bankers League
June 25 - Joe DeDominicis - CEO Stockton Mortgage
July 2 - Kim Nelson - CEO, BankSouth Mortgage
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
May 14-17 - PGA Championship (Aronimink Golf Club)
May 16 - Preakness Stakes (Laurel Park, Md.)
May 17-20 - MBA Secondary and Capital Markets Conference (Marriott Marquis, NYC)
May 25 - Memorial Day (markets closed)
May 31 - Indy 500 (Indianapolis Motor Speedway)
JUNE 2026
Jun 3 - Jobs Report (May)
Jun 5 - Belmont Stakes (Saratoga Race Course) -- Triple Crown on the line
Jun 11 - FIFA World Cup kicks off (USA, Canada, Mexico -- 48 teams)
Jun 14-16 - Ohio MBA Annual Conference (Columbus OH)
Jun 15 - Father's Day
Jun 16-17 - FOMC Meeting (rate decision, press conference)
Jun 18-21 - US Open Golf (Shinnecock Hills)
Jun 19 - Juneteenth (federal holiday, markets closed)
Jun 22 - NBA Draft (approx.)
Jun 29 - Wimbledon begins
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk.” — Mark Zuckerberg
THE OHIO MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSOCIATION (OMBA)
The OMBA Podcast Network = underrated if you like mortgage content
Reg is OPEN for our 2026 Annual Conference!
THE MORTGAGE COLLABORATIVE
Want to learn more about the benefits of membership in TMC? Reach out to Heidi Belnay at [email protected]! Or me by replying to this email!
THE CARDBOARD JUNGLE
LOADED sports card break lineup for this coming Friday! Get your sports at thecardboardjungle.com!
We are one of eBay’s biggest and most highly rated sellers of sports card singles! Check out our eBay store here and pick up one of your favorite players rookie cards!
Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]