Overture Technologies Closes $6 Million Series C Funding Led by Capital Trust Ventures


Bethesda, MD (PRWEB) December 19, 2008

Overture Technologies, the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes, announced it has closed $ 6 million in Series C funding led by Capital Trust Ventures with continuing participation from CNF Investments, New Markets Growth Fund and other existing investors. Financing will be used to support market expansion to meet urgent and increasing demand for the company’s financial decisioning solutions serving the mortgage and education lending industries. In conjunction with the funding, Tim Meyers, Managing Partner at Capital Trust Ventures, has joined Overture’s board of directors.

“Today’s mortgage and student loan industries require consistent application of complex lending and pricing guidelines and thorough evaluation of ever-changing risk and asset valuation data to meet current and future regulatory requirements,” said Bill Kelvie, CEO, Overture Technologies. “This growth funding from experienced investors during a challenging time further validates our approach and will help us accelerate our reach for the markets we serve.”

Overture enables market efficiency and improves risk management in underwriting, pricing, servicing and valuing mortgage loans and assets with its Mozart suite of solutions, industry-leading automated decisioning software for originations and acquisitions, servicing, secondary marketing and the capital markets. In addition to Overture’s advanced FHA lending decisioning capabilities, its groundbreaking solution uses rules-driven decisioning for loan modifications to keep borrowers in their homes.
Overture’s education finance solutions empower colleges and universities, lenders, guarantors and other service providers to help students intelligently navigate the process of funding their education with Conductor, the leading online financial aid portal, the Student Loan Marketplace loan comparison tool and Amadeus, the premier student loan pricing and underwriting solution.
“Overture is providing business rules management systems for lending processes that can restore confidence in the credit markets and prevent the current crises in mortgage and education lending from happening again,” said Tim Meyers, Managing Partner, Capital Trust Ventures. “We’re pleased to invest in a company led by industry veterans and technology thought leaders who are enabling greater accuracy, transparency and efficiency for this significant and essential segment of the financial services sector.”

About Capital Trust Ventures:

Capital Trust Ventures provides growth-stage venture capital financing for information technology companies. We work closely to form a strong partnership with proven entrepreneurial leaders with the vision and spirit to build market-leading companies, help them to achieve scale and exit successfully. Our team of partners has extensive investing and entrepreneurial experience in multiple sectors including application software, emerging technologies, vertical software, new media, internet content, e-commerce and infrastructure software. Capital Trust Ventures is a member of the Capital Trust Group, a leading private equity and advisory firm. For additional information, visit http://www.capitaltrustventures.com.

About Overture Technologies:

Founded in 2000, Overture Technologies is the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes for the mortgage and higher education lending industries. Overture’s customers are dedicated to providing superior mortgage underwriting, servicing and securitization services and to increasing students’ access to higher education financing alternatives. Overture’s leadership team applies decades of experience from leading financial services and technology firms including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, IBM and KPMG to help our customers achieve their goals. For further information, call (301) 492-2155 or visit http://www.overturecorp.com.

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More Securitization Press Releases

Simplifile and Rekon Technologies Enter into Strategic Integration Partnership

Provo, Utah (PRWEB) January 12, 2009

Simplifile, the leader in e-recording, and Rekon Technologies, a leading software vendor in the mortgage loan servicing industry, today announce that they have entered into a strategic partnership to integrate Rekon’s lien release and assignment processing system into the Simplifile e-recording system.

The newly formed partnership will allow users of the Rekon processing system to instantly and securely send documents to the Simplifile e-recording system. The solution will automatically upload recordable documents into the customer’s Simplifile account and create a new e-recording package. This tight integration allows Rekon users to quickly and easily prepare documents and electronically record them with Simplifile’s enabled counties throughout the United States from the convenience of their own office.

“Rekon is known for its advanced method of lien release and assignment document preparation,” said Aurora Marsh, CEO of Rekon Technologies. “By integrating Rekon into the Simplifile e-recording system, the combined solution fuels the current industry trend toward paperless solutions. Our strategic partnership with Simplifile provides our clients with an opportunity to build state-of-the-art networks that will give them the edge in delivering excellent customer service, resulting in increased customer satisfaction.”

“Simplifile is pleased to work with Rekon to bring the benefits of industry leading lien release and assignment processing with the Simplifile e-recording system,” said Erik Blomquist, Simplifile Vice President of Technology. “Rekon is a leader in the mortgage loan servicing industry. With the integration of Rekon into the Simplifile e-recording system, our mutual clients will benefit from the integrated systems to more efficiently prepare and record documents, and virtually eliminate the need for paper documents.”

About Simplifile

Simplifile provides innovative, simple, and secure electronic recording services via the Internet. Simplifile’s customers include title companies, banks, attorneys, lien filers, and county and state government jurisdictions. Simplifile electronic recording services accelerate document recording and simplifies document workflow processes that reduces costly overhead associated with traditional submission and recordation methods while improving client service levels.

Simplifile is focused on building the industry’s de facto electronic recording network. As such, Simplifile provides a streamlined and scalable approach to electronic recording tailored to organizations of all shapes and sizes. For more information on how Simplifile can benefit your organization, visit http://www.simplifile.com or call 801.373.0151.

About Rekon Technologies

Rekon Technologies offers technology solutions to the loan servicing industry, providing tools to track, manage, prepare and record loan documents such as lien releases, assignments, UCC terminations, trailing documents and others.

Rekon Technologies’ flagship product and namesake “Rekon” is a fully sustainable workflow driven document preparation and management system, integrated with imaging and eRecording solutions to process loans from payoff to recording in a truly automated and paperless environment from anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, the DokTrak software is considered to be the most versatile document tracking and data warehousing technology solution, especially in resolving the gap between origination and servicing, including the processes of post closing and file certification for securitization. More information about Rekon Technologies and its products is available by visiting http://www.rekon.com or calling 626-577-4350.

“Simplifile” is a registered service mark of Simplifile, LC.

Rekon is a registered trademark of Rekon Technologies, Inc., a California corporation.

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New FDIC Plan Will Help Clients of The Loan Modification Center

Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) January 12, 2009

Sheila Bair, who was named chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 2006, has reiterated her view that the best approach to resolving the current housing crisis is to encourage lenders to renegotiate mortgages with homeowners.

Bair’s proposal calls for a loan modification program so that payments are reduced to 31% of homeowners’ gross income (Sasseen & Francis, 2008). The federal government would guarantee to cover part of the losses if the homeowners re-default despite this assistance. Bair claims that this approach would save 1.5 million homeowners and would cost the federal government approximately $ 24.4 billion (Sasseen & Francis, 2008).

The proposed approach has faced a barrage of criticisms and doubts. Some have claimed that the renegotiation of millions of mortgage loans will take too long to have a practical effect (Wallison & Pinto, 2008). Others have pointed out that it will be difficult to renegotiate certain types of loans, particularly those that have been securitized, or sold to investors (Sasseen & Francis, 2008). Critics have also argued that previous efforts to renegotiate mortgages have not been particularly successful. Specifically, there is evidence that more than half of the mortgages renegotiated during 2008 are already at least 30 days past due (Sasseen & Francis, 2008). Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson argues that Bair’s plan is problematic because it increases government expenditures and it rewards banks when homeowners default (Sasseen & Francis, 2008).

Alternative solutions have been proposed for the housing mess, but these too have perceived flaws. For example, bailing out the major mortgage companies might simply encourage further risky practices in the future (Murphy, 2008). Treasury Secretary Paulson claims that the best approach is to reduce mortgage rates, in order to encourage more home purchases. However, this approach has been criticized because it won’t help borrowers who are already in trouble (Sasseen & Francis, 2008). Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economist, has suggested that the federal government should make loans to troubled homeowners to cover 20% of their mortgages (Feldstein, 2008). However, this raises the risk of borrowers, in turn, defaulting on their debts to the government (Murphy, 2008). There is, additionally, widespread sentiment that helping companies or borrowers who got themselves into trouble is unfair to those who made more reasonable financial decisions.

The housing crisis came about because trillions of dollars of mortgage loans were made to borrowers who were not really able to repay the loans. Many of the loans were based on adjustable rates that greatly increased the size of homeowner payments after a certain period of time (Murphy, 2008). The situation led to a growing number of defaults and a substantial decline in housing values. The proposed solutions to the problem are based on the question of whether it is better to assist mortgage companies or borrowers. There seems to be a partisan divide on this issue, since many Democrat politicians, such as Bair, are in favor of helping borrowers, while Republican leaders, like Paulson, are in favor of helping the big companies. In spite of this controversy, there is widespread agreement among policymakers that the most important step is to strengthen regulation of the housing market and the mortgage industry (Murphy, 2008).

References

Feldstein, M. (2008). How to help people whose home values are underwater. Wall Street Journal (November 18), A21.

Murphy, R. P. (2008). Can the Feds save the housing market? Freeman 58(5), 8.

Sasseen, J., & Francis, T. (2008). A standoff over housing relief. Business Week (December 22), 30.

Wallison, P. J., & Pinto, E. (2008). Let’s use Fannie to clean up the mess it made. Wall Street Journal (October 25), A13.

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Intellectual Property Value Creation and Monetization in Bankruptcy

La Jolla, CA (PRWEB) February 19, 2009

In a bankruptcy environment, intellectual property is often the last asset group to gain attention. Once the hard assets (i.e., A/R, inventory, equipment, real estate, etc.) are addressed, the focus then shifts to what’s left-intellectual property and intangible assets. The intangibles represent the biggest opportunity to generate substantial incremental value for the estate through the “value creation and monetization” (VCM) process.

Inventory and Triage: The initial step in the VCM process identifies the full extent of the intellectual property and intangible assets owned and/or operated by the debtor. This group of assets includes the obvious assets, such as trademarks, patents, copyrights and domain names. However, there are additional assets that are typically overlooked, ranging from software and databases, to licenses and creative materials. Intangible assets generally fall into three distinct areas: marketing- based assets, IT-based assets and technology-based assets:

Marketing Bundle:

Primary trademark

Corporate name and logo

Marketing umbrella

Sub-brand names

Core brand

Worldwide trademark registration

Copyrights

Secondary trademarks

Packaging design and copyrights

Trade dress

Characters

IT Bundle:

Enterprise solutions

Custom applications

Data warehouses

Master licenses

Source code

Databases

Data mining

Domain names/URLs

e-Commerce sites

Third party software tools

Credit/payment systems

Technical Bundle:

Key patents

Trade secrets

Formulae

Packaging technology and sources

Shapes and sizes

Design technology

Proprietary test results

Plant and production design

Product specifications

Operating platforms

Once the assets are identified, it is important to triage the portfolio into the most logical bundles or groups. The bundling process develops a roadmap for categorizing the portfolio in a logical fashion for valuation purposes. From here, ownership of the assets is verified to confirm the debtor’s rights. Encumbrances on the assets can severely impact asset value and hamper the ability to exploit the assets in the marketplace. In sum, the inventory and triage process serves as the foundation of the VCM process.

Valuation and Value Creation: Once the assets are identified, properly categorized and ownership rights are determined, the value creation process commences. With intellectual property, multiple contexts of value can exist. Initially, the “as is/where is” value sets the floor value for the assets. However, and more importantly, the value creation proposition is what differentiates intellectual property from the debtors’ tangible asset counterparts. In other words, intellectual property presents the ability to leverage the assets into new opportunities. Whether via strategic licensing, joint venture, sale or other monetization scenario, intellectual property contains hidden value that, when properly exploited, can generate substantial returns for the debtor.

Monetization Process: Now that the assets are properly assessed, the “go to market” strategy must be developed. From a top-level perspective, intellectual property is by definition unique and few comparables exist in the marketplace. These assets require a strategic plan to effectively communicate the inherent value opportunities. Also, targeted buyers typically need more information about the assets and the opportunities than is offered through the static auction platform. Moreover, static auctions market the auction, and not the specific assets. To maximize value through the direct marketing campaign, the assets must be creatively packaged and communicated to an expanded universe of potential buyers. Direct marketers must possess a vast network of resources to reach a broader audience. While direct competitors may be the obvious targets, the expanded universe of potential buyers should include financial and strategic buyers. Additionally, buyers can be targeted through specific intellectual property and other industry resources such as:

International Trademark Association (INTA)

Licensing Executives Society (LES and LESI)

Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association (LIMA)

American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI)

Turnaround Management Association (TMA)

Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors (AIRA)

Commercial Finance Association (CFA)

The marketing of intellectual property is about telling a story, and this can only be accomplished through one-on-one interaction. Significant discussion is required during the due diligence phase. Buyers will need detailed information and will have a multitude of questions. This is the most important element of the selling process- identifying a need and creating a value proposition for the buyer.

Value Extraction Strategies: Extracting value from intellectual property and intangible assets can take a number of different forms-and requires marketing to a number of different types of potential buyers-these end-users typically include strategic buyers, financial investors, intellectual property owners and agglomerators, as well as competitors and professional IP management companies. This network includes people culled from our proprietary data base of 13,000+ transactions, as well as other proprietary and public sources. Successful strategies that we have pursued in specific cases include the following:


Sale of technology at a low price in order to recoup R&D tax credits at the federal level
Outright sale
Creation of an IP holding company
Partial sale of some assets with the balance being held by a successor IP management company
Dutch auction of assets to a variety of purchasers
Development of a licensing and brand extension strategy packaged with the assets for sale to an IP specialist
Sale of the assets to an offshore holding company, for internal use or license into overseas markets
Sale and leaseback of the IP assets
Securitization of the assets to generate working capital for a successful reorganization.

Each case is different and each value extraction strategy is unique-because all intellectual property by its very definition is unique, and the markets for specific intangible assets and IP changes on a relatively rapid basis. One final thought before looking at specific case studies: extracting maximum value from intellectual property is a five step process.

1. Identify all of the intangible assets and IP;

2. Understand all of the alternatives for value extraction;

3. Accurately value each asset or bundle of assets to establish priorities;

4. Design an overall strategy for the monetization process; and,

5. Manage the process early and intensively, using IP professionals.

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