United Wholesale Mortgage: Bidding War for TWO Could Be Nearing a Ceiling

Research evidence excerpt

United Wholesale Mortgage: Bidding War for TWO Could Be Nearing a Ceiling

Deutsche Bank

Research

Rating Company Date

Hold United Wholesale 11 May 2026

Mortgage

North America Reuters Bloomberg Rating Hold

United States UWMC.N UWMC US Price target (USD) 5.00 Price at 8 May 26 3.38

52-week range 6.91 – 3.38

Financial

Consumer Finance Valuation & Risks

Bidding War for TWO Could Be Nearing a

Ceiling MarkResearchDeVriesAnalyst

+1-212-250-4081

As the GOAT Michael Jordan once said, “the ceiling is the roof”, and when it

Michael Dunlevy, CFA comes to the ongoing bidding war for TWO between UWMC and CrossCountry Research Associate

Mortgage, our analysis suggests that UWMC may be approaching the roof. After +1-212-250-9888

raising its cash bid to $12.50 today, but keeping the stock exchange rate

unchanged, it appears that the deal would only be marginally EPS accretive and

could actually increase leverage unless a high percentage of TWO shareholders

opt to receive UWMC shares and/or UWMC sells a large percentage of the

acquired MSRs to pay down acquisition debt. In this report, we detail the balance

sheet and earnings impact for UWMC shareholders under different assumptions

for the cash/stock mix of consideration and post-close MSR sales to frame the

implications of the latest bid. We do not opine on whether TWO’s board will or

should accept that offer, though we do note that it’s rationale for rejecting

UWMC’s previous offer would seem to hold for UWMC’s latest bid after

CrossCountry Mortgage raised its bid to $12 a share late last week. Though even

if the TWO board does not accept the UWMC bid, that does not mean the TWO

shareholders will approve the sale to CrossCountry with a higher cash bid from

UWMC outstanding, so the uncertainly could continue through the special