Rocktop Technologies’ purchase of Incenter Capital Advisors is both complementary to its current capabilities as well as a way for the company to differentiate itself.

Terms of the deal, which was completed on May 15, were not disclosed. For now, Incenter Capital Advisors will retain its current branding.

“We are very tech heavy, tech enabled, we have a very strong expertise set that sits around the capital market space in particular,” said Brett Benson, Rocktop’s co-president and chief investment officer, in an interview. “Just our combined domain expertise here is where we get very excited about the opportunity set.”

Incenter Capital Advisors brokers and consults on the trading and pricing of mortgage servicing rights along with post-transactional support in the transference of these assets.

Why Rocktop wanted to buy Incenter Capital Advisors

Among those synergistic pieces is Rocktop’s MSR valuations, due diligence functions and transaction management functions that are complementary with the business it acquired, Benson said.

Rocktop has had personal relationships with Incenter Capital Advisors executives for a number of years, including its managing director, Tom Piercy.

“The opportunity came about partially because of our perspective on where the market is going,” Benson said. “It has been a very light trading environment for the past couple of years; our expectation is that we will have a more robust — I won’t use the word healthy, I will say more robust — market going forward.”

Focusing on AI and blockchain

In turn, Rocktop has been focused on the technology wthat enhances the trading operations functions, including artificial intelligence and blockchain.

“We have been working very heavily on using those AI functions for data mapping and servicing transfers and the capital markets, trade ops functions. For those reasons, and just the personal relationships we’ve had with the Incenter Capital Advisors group, particularly Tom Piercy, the discussions kind of took a life of their own,” Benson noted.

At some point during those talks it became clear that it made more sense for Rocktop to acquire Incenter Capital Advisors, rather than just do a partnership.

His views for a more robust MSR market is based on increases in both origination activities and distress for borrowers. In turn those naturally lead to more capital market activities.

The outlook for MSR trades in 2025

It is the balancing of mortgage rates, something that hasn’t existed for some period of time, that will lead to more origination activity. In turn, it will add more supply to the MSR market and that should lead to more trading, Benson said.

Another factor is delinquency rates, which are picking up. That too leads to more MSR trades as servicers look to move distressed portfolios.

“By aligning Rocktop’s strengths in data and document management, intelligent workflow automation, and AI-driven analytics with Incenter Capital Advisors’ client-facing market execution, deep valuation expertise and data sets, we will create a powerful feedback loop between valuation intelligence, real-time market signals, and process efficiency,” said Piercy in a press release.

“This will allow institutional mortgage investors to act more strategically — and more confidently — across the entire lifecycle of MSR and whole loan investing for best execution,” he added.

Piercy is remaining with Incenter Capital Advisors.

While Incenter Capital Advisors was sold, other business lines remain with Incenter Lender Services, including property tax, insurance, loan diligence, student lending, appraisal, title, and marketing services and solutions, as well as CampusDoor, a private student lending technology platform.