San Diego’s Guild Mortgage to be sold in $1.3 billion deal

One of San Diego’s oldest companies announced Wednesday it will be purchased by a Florida-based investment firm.

Guild Mortgage, based in San Diego since its 1960 founding, has agreed to sell all remaining shares of its company for $1.3 billion to Florida-based Bayview Asset Management.

Guild had been publicly traded since October 2020 but will now become private. Stockholders will receive $20 a share. That’s a 56% premium to the stock’s closing price on May 23, the last trading day before Bayview disclosed its interest in acquiring the lender. Guild shares jumped 25.45% Wednesday to close at $19.72.

Bayview had already owned 7.3% of Guild, which had been acquiring other companies in recent years. In 2021, it purchased Maine’s Residential Mortgage Services Holdings for $196.7 million.

Guild will now operate as a privately held independent entity, said a news release put out by both companies. They said Guild’s management team and executives would remain in place and there would be no change to its business operation or customer experience.

As of 2024, Guild was the eighth biggest mortgage lender in the nation, said a Bankrate analysis. It said Guild originated 75,356 loans last year. The top lender was United Wholesale Mortgage with 366,078 loans.

Guild will partner with another mortgage servicer owned by Bayview, Lakeview Loan Servicing.

“Expanding the Guild relationship with Lakeview creates one of the strongest and most compelling mortgage origination and servicing ecosystems in the nation,” said Guild CEO Terry Schmidt in the news release.

Guild offers a variety of home loans, including a 1% down payment program where Guild contributes an additional 2% (maximum of $5,000). The program is aimed at first-time buyers with a credit score of 620 or higher.