Ellie Mae has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Thoma Bravo LLC, a private equity investment firm, in a cash transaction that values Ellie Mae at around $3.7 billion.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ellie Mae shareholders will receive $99.00 in cash per share. The price per share represents a 47 percent premium to the 30-day average closing share price and 49 percent premium to the 60-day average closing price as of Feb. 1, 2019.

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“Since the founding of Ellie Mae more than 20 years ago, our mission has been simple--to automate everything for the residential mortgage industry,” said Jonathan Corr, president and CEO of Ellie Mae. “As we enter this next phase of our digital mortgage journey, we are thrilled to provide immediate value to our shareholders. With the investment and support from Thoma Bravo, we will remain committed to our customers’ success, innovation and growth of the Encompass Digital Lending Platform while maintaining our position as a best place to work.”

[caption id="attachment_9349" align="alignleft" width="242"] Jonathan Corr[/caption]

“Ellie Mae delivers powerful and innovative mortgage technology solutions across every channel of the residential mortgage sector, enabling lenders to originate more loans while reducing costs and driving efficiency, quality and compliance throughout the mortgage process,” said Holden Spaht, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo. “Ellie Mae is leading the digital transformation of the residential mortgage industry and we look forward to building on the company’s successes and to our partnership through this next chapter of growth.”

Ellie Mae’s board unanimously approved the definitive agreement and recommended that stockholders vote their shares in favor of the transaction. Ellie Mae’s headquarters will remain in Pleasanton, California, with regional offices across the U.S. Closing of the transaction is subject to approval by Ellie Mae stockholders and regulatory authorities and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the second or third quarter of 2019 and is not subject to a financial condition.

The agreement includes a 35 day “go-shop” period, which permits Ellie Mae’s Board and advisors to actively initiate, solicit, encourage, and potentially enter negotiations with parties that make alternative acquisition proposals.

Ellie Mae will have the right to terminate the merger agreement to enter into a superior proposal subject to the terms and conditions of this merger agreement.

There can be no assurance that this 35 day “go-shop” will result in a superior proposal, and Ellie Mae does not intend to disclose developments with respect to the solicitation process unless and until the board makes a determination requiring further disclosure.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC is serving as the exclusive financial advisor to Ellie Mae and Cooley LLP is serving as the legal advisor to Ellie Mae. Jefferies LLC served as financial advisor to Thoma Bravo and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to Thoma Bravo. Financing for the transaction is being provided by Jefferies Finance LLC.

The term “sphere” might be the most overused term in sales and marketing literature.

For some, the sphere is represented by one’s immediate friends, but for others it is someone’s previous customers.

A sphere is a compendium of someone’s life, and includes their background, contacts, experiences, interests and more.

In reality, your sphere includes these elements and much more. It is when we define the sphere in the right way that we find out how important our sphere is to our marketing plan. In the long-run, our sphere should be the basis, or foundation, of this plan.

[caption id="attachment_9654" align="alignleft" width="280"] Dave Hershman[/caption]

First, what is one’s sphere? A sphere is comprised of those you know and those who know you as well. Put it this way--if you were walking down the street and passed someone–would you say hello? If you would, they are part of your sphere. In addition to this relationship component, there is also a component of commonality. There are those you don’t know, but with whom you have something in common.

For example, let’s say you go to church or temple. There may be 500 families and 1,000 members of the religious organization. You probably know 50 of these people because you live near them, sit near them, or even have served on committees with them. But there are 950 people that you don’t know who are part of the sphere.

It has a commonality component and a relationship component. The commonality component adds the largest numbers to your sphere while the relationship component adds the most important individuals to your sphere.

The next segment will look at the seven all-important segments of one’s personal sphere.

About the Author: Dave Hershman is a VP of Sales for Weichert Financial Services and founder or OriginationPro (www.OriginationPro.com), providing marketing content and training programs for the industry.  Email him with questions or comments at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

[caption id="attachment_9831" align="alignleft" width="291"] Rick Grant[/caption]

By Rick Grant

When I started tweeting, there weren’t a great many serious mortgage industry professionals on the platform. What could an originator say of any importance using only 140 characters? It turns out, quite a lot. Today, there are thousands of originators using Twitter to get attention, share information and get more business.

By making it easy to send out a tweet when they posted to LinkedIn, the most popular social media platform for business people, Twitter introduced many industries to its platform. Using Twitter can boost your business, keep you in front of clients, realtors and other influencers.

But how do you know if your posts are actually connecting with anyone? Twitter has released a tweet activity dashboard that will allow any user to learn more about their tweets and how they are resonating with their audience.

According to Twitter, it’s dashboard can allow any user to:

• See how people engage with your tweets in real time.
• Compare your tweet activity and followers and see how they trend over time.
• Click on any tweet to get a detailed view of the number of retweets, replies, likes, follows, or clicks it receives.
• Get detailed insights into who your audience is, especially those who engage with your tweets, and
• Download your tweet metrics.

Using the tool, it’s quite easy to see a detailed analysis of your Twitter activity. For each tweet a user sends, they can use the dashboard to track:

• How many impressions the tweet got.
• How many other Twitter users engaged with the tweet, and
• The engagement rate (impressions divided by engagements).

By clicking on individual tweets, users can then get more specific information on each engagement, such as:

• Video views
• Link clicks
• Photo or video clicks
• Likes
• Retweets
• Replies
• Detail expands
• Profile clicks

You can see all of this data over time, so you can track average engagements per day and how your numbers are changing throughout the month. This will allow you to determine what is resonating with your audience so you can tweet out more of it.

The available data goes back to October 2013, so if you’ve been tweeting as long as I have, you’ll be able to track your performance over time.

 To access your tweet activity dashboard, visit analytics.twitter.com. It is also accessible from the iOS and Android Twitter apps.

The  dashboard makes it easy for an originator to know his Twitter strategy is working and he can continue on it. Or it’s not, and changes to the strategy are necessary.

About the Author: Rick Grant is the president of RGA Public Relations and a frequent contributor to mortgage industry publications. Email him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Ask the Expert: Dave Hershman

 Focus on Management: Practical Recruitment Tips for Managers 

[caption id="attachment_9654" align="alignright" width="268"] Dave Hershman[/caption]

Q: It has become increasing difficult to fill loan originator positions with experienced hires who easily acclimate themselves to the office. I am thinking about bringing new people into the industry and going after those who are not as experienced as well, but I don’t know how to assess them.

Do you have any recruitment advice?  Ann from Vienna, Va.

Hershman: Our industry has never had had a definitive path for people to join the mortgage industry. No one goes to school to become a mortgage banker or loan officer. In the past, those who have wandered into the industry were likely to come from a related field or had some sort of personal connection--family, vendors, and so forth.

Our recruitment strategies need to become more sophisticated. While most mortgage companies don’t put signs on telephone poles, cold call or advertise for positions, too often the strategy won’t yield the types of candidates the firm is looking for.

After all, experienced and productive loan officer aren’t looking at ads to find a job, especially with recruiters working the phones every day. Likewise, those who can’t find a job are likely to respond to ads for entering the industry. Either way, we aren’t attracting the elite candidates we need to lead our industry in the future.

To improve the chances of recruiting ideal candidates, people who will fit well with the company’s culture, follow some practical guidelines:

• Instead of experience, ask about accomplishments.
• Instead of education, ask about specific skills, and
• Instead of salary or compensation requirements, ask for monetary objects and how they see themselves getting to that point.

Thanks for the question, Ann.

About the Author: Dave Hershman is a VP of Sales for Weichert Financial Services and founder or OriginationPro (www.OriginationPro.com), providing marketing content and training programs for the industry.  Email him with questions or comments at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.