LoanDepot confirms it’s considering an IPO again

LD Holding Group Wednesday said that its new loanDepot Inc. affiliate submitted a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering.

The draft IPO filing for its Class A shares follows speculation by analysts that it would follow the lead of Rocket Cos. in going public. AmeriHome and Caliber Home Loans are planning IPOs as well, though they revised their initial plans following stock market volatility ahead of the U.S. election. A handful of other nonbank lenders — Guild Mortgage, United Wholesale Mortgage and Finance of America — have also gone public of late, with UWM and Finance of America doing so by merging with special purpose acquisition companies.

The number of loanDepot shares to be sold and their price range have not yet been determined, the company said in its press release. Sources close to the matter had valued the company at $12 billion to $15 billion in an IPO, according to a September report from Bloomberg.

LD Holdings’ announcement about its draft IPO filing came a little over a week after it announced a private call about its third-quarter results, which was limited to holders of its 6.5% senior unsecured notes due 2025, prospective institutional buyers of those notes, and certain securities analysts and market makers.

LoanDepot, which is led by founder and CEO Anthony Hsieh, previously considered going public in 2015, but never followed through due to what it saw as unfavorable market conditions at the time. Hsieh headed a series of online mortgage companies prior to the Great Recession and founded loanDepot in 2010.

Rocket and loanDepot were both early pioneers in developing digital mortgage technologies. LoanDepot’s equivalent of Rocket’s eponymous loan platform is named mello.

Among loanDepot’s innovative practices was an early embrace of technology-enabled flexible work strategies. It initiated the effort last year, before the pandemic made remote work a more widespread necessity.