Caliber Funding LLC and Vericrest Financial, Inc. are merging their operations to form a full-service residential mortgage banking organization with both loan originations and loan servicing capabilities.

Caliber is a national residential mortgage lender based in Dallas-Texas. The company employs over 950 mortgage lending professionals nationwide and has 65 retail branches.

Vericrest is a nationwide servicer with locations in Texas, Oklahoma, and California. Vericrest employs over 600 mortgage-servicing professionals.

The company’s servicing portfolio includes about 55,600 mortgage loans with a principal balance of $10.1 billion.

The companies announced their shareholders, who are comprised of various affiliates of Lone Star Funds, agreed to the move. Long Star Funds will continue to own the combined organization and provide capital backing. Final closing is expected to occur within 4-6 months. Until then, Caliber and Vericrest will continue to operate independently.

“Loan originations and servicing are a natural fit, and we expect the combined company will generate significant revenue opportunities to support continued growth,” said Jim Ferriter, president of Caliber. “We are looking forward to working with Vericrest’s talented team of professionals and to building a larger, more diverse organization that offers greater opportunities to our customers, employees and investors.”

“Until recently, Vericrest only offered servicing solutions to affiliates of Lone Star. Since offering our unique, proactive mortgage servicing solutions to other investors, we have experienced significant growth,” added David Schneider, CEO of Vericrest. “Caliber’s innovative lending platform is a perfect complement to our servicing business and will enable us to refinance and retain loans in our loan servicing portfolio, as well as retain servicing rights on the loans Caliber originates.”