United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia is offering a simple explanation for explosive allegations that his company has “corrupted” mortgage brokers in order to cheat “hundreds of thousands of borrowers out of billions of dollars” in fees and costs.
Ishbia claims the allegations — made public Tuesday by a company affiliated with a hedge fund that’s taken a short position in UWM, and which also form the basis of a consumer lawsuit against the nation’s largest mortgage lender — have been cooked up by UWM’s fiercest rival, Rocket Mortgage, and its founder, Dan Gilbert.
“That’s Rocket Mortgage and Dan Gilbert doing Rocket Mortgage and Dan Gilbert things,” Ishbia told reporters Thursday. “And that’s just what it’s been funded by.”
Rocket Mortgage and Hunterbrook Media, the newly-launched media company that published the scathing report on UWM’s alleged business practices, say Ishbia’s accusations are baseless.
One of Hunterbrook Media’s founders, Sam Koppelman, called Ishbia’s take “a baseless conspiracy theory” on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Neither Rocket nor Gilbert even agreed to provide us with comment,” Koppelman posted on X. “Ishbia, meanwhile, has yet to point to a single fact we got wrong in our reporting. Mat, up for an interview?”
A hedge fund that’s affiliated with Hunterbrook Media, Hunterbrook Capital, has taken a short position in UWM — a bet that the company’s share price will crash. It’s also long on Rocket Companies, meaning it’s bought shares it hopes will increase in value — perhaps fueling Ishbia’s suspicions.
(UWM had not responded to a request for comment on the basis of Ishbia’s allegations as of publication time Friday).
A spokesperson for Rocket Mortgage told Inman that Gilbert and Rocket have nothing to do with Hunterbrook Media.
“Dan Gilbert and Rocket Mortgage have no investment, other financial interests or relationship to Hunterbrook Media,” Rocket Mortgage spokesperson Aaron Emerson said in a statement to Inman. “The professional investigation speaks for itself and appears to be based on factual, public information uncovered by the journalists who conducted the investigation.”
The allegations detailed in Hunterbrook Media’s report are serious — and are the basis of a lawsuit seeking class-action status in a federal district court to represent UWM borrowers who were allegedly harmed.
In prohibiting mortgage brokers who send borrowers to UWM from sending loan applications to rivals Rocket Mortgage or Fairway Independent Mortgage, the lawsuit alleges that UWM has caused a growing number of mortgage brokers to “artificially steer loans to UWM.”
In the process, UWM has violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), the lawsuit alleges.