Black Knight, a member of a consortium that has agreed to acquire The Dunn and Bradstreet Corp., will spend most of the $375 million earmarked for the transaction to purchase the equity interests of another consortium member.

Black Knight Inc. will invest $250 million to purchase the ownership interest of QIA FIG Holding, a Doha, Qatar-based financial company, according to the latest Form 8-K it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The remaining $125 million is an equity commitment to the consortium, Star Parent LP. The investment in Dun & Bradstreet would yield less than a 20 percent share in Dun & Bradstreet. And there is some exposure to Black Knight: If because of a failure to receive regulatory approval or for any other reason, the deal isn’t completed, Dunn and Bradstreet will receive a termination fee of $380.1 million from the consortium.

In addition to Black Knight, other participants who signed the SEC filing, are Cannae Holdings Inc., THL Equity Advisors VIII LLC, Thomas H. Lee Partners L.P., Thomas H. Lee Advisors LLC, and THL Holdco LLC. The acquisition will be financed through equity financing provided by the consortium, preferred equity and debt financing from Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., and the Royal Bank of Canada.

Mortgage applications decreased 3.0 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending January 25, 2019. This week’s results include an adjustment for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 3.0 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 10 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 6 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 6 percent compared with the previous week and was 7 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

“Mortgage applications for purchase and refinances were lower over the past week, as rates nudged higher,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Industry Surveys and Forecasts. “After two weeks of decreases, the purchase index still remained roughly 6 percent above its long-run average, which is good news with the spring buying and selling season almost underway. Despite ongoing supply and affordability constraints, the healthy job market and underlying demographic fundamentals both point to gradual purchase growth in the coming months.”

[caption id="attachment_8412" align="alignleft" width="144"] Joel Kan[/caption]

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 42.0 percent of applications from 44.5 percent the previous wee adjustable-rate mortgage share of activity decreased to 7.9 percent of total applications.

The FHA share of applications remained unchanged from 10.5 percent the week prior. The Veterans Affairs share of total applications increased to 10.7 percent from 10.3 percent the week prior. The Department of Agriculture share of applications remained unchanged at 0.4 percent compared to the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($484,350 or less) increased to 4.76 percent, from 4.75 percent, with points increasing to 0.47 from 0.44 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio loans. The effective rate increased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with jumbo loan balances (greater than $484,350) increased to 4.60 percent from 4.59 percent, with points decreasing to 0.24 from 0.25 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate remained unchanged from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages backed by the FHA decreased to 4.77 percent from 4.82 percent, with points decreasing to 0.58, from 0.62 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 4.16 percent from 4.12 percent, with points decreasing to 0.46 from 0.53 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate increased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 5/1 ARMs increased to 4.14 percent from 4.12 percent, with points decreasing to 0.37 from 0.42 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate remained unchanged from last week.

The survey covers over 75 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications and has been conducted weekly since 1990. Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts.

Borrowers complained more to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau about mortgage servicing issues than any other problem with their mortgages.

Fully 11 percent of the complaints the bureau received were mortgage related, and 42 percent of them were from borrowers that had “trouble during [the] payment process,” according to “Complaint Snapshot: Mortgage” from the CFPB.

According to an analysis of complaints the CFPB received between Nov. 1, 2016 and Oct. 31, 2018, borrowers were most likely to complain about their statements, payments, escrow accounts and payoff requests.

• Complaints describing issues with periodic statements suggest some consumers are not receiving statements on time, resulting in a lack of information about whether payments were applied to their balances or the status of loans. In some of these complaints, consumers attributed a missing statement to a recent transfer of servicing of the loan. Other consumers complained of periodic statements containing inaccurate account information such as late fees assessed to their loan despite payments made on or before the due date.
• Borrowers complained about servicers not applying payments to their loan account as intended. For instant, despite submitting extra payments with instructions to apply them to principal, payments were either misapplied or held in an unapplied funds account and applied only after the servicer was contacted.
• Consumers complained of escrow account analyses indicating a shortage of funds. In these complaints, some consumers stated they received an escrow analysis statement that indicated a shortage because of an increase to hazard insurance, taxes, or both. But after researching their tax bill or hazard insurance premium, they did not find an increase in costs, and therefore, considered the escrow shortage unwarranted.
• Some consumers complained of payoff information requests that were either not addressed or that were inaccurate because the consumer did not receive the information on time. In some of these complaints, consumers reported multiple unsuccessful attempts to obtain payoff information, or an inaccurate payoff amount delayed their attempt to pay their loan in full.

Compared to the monthly average compiled over the past 24 months, borrowers submitted 18 percent fewer mortgage complaints in October 2018. And there were 15 percent fewer mortgage complaints from August to October 2018, compared with the same period a year earlier.