Lender recruits industry veteran, ending executive hunt
Non-QM lender Acra Lending has named Shawn Stone as chief executive officer, tapping the financial services veteran to replace Keith Lind at the helm.
The move, which sees Lind remain chairman of the board, arrives following the acquisition of Acra’s parent company, HPS Investment Partners, by investment management giant BlackRock Financial in a blockbuster $12 billion deal.
Stone most recently served as chief executive officer and board member at online loan origination and servicing platform LendingPoint and also spent two decades at Mr. Cooper, where he rose to the role of chief revenue and originations officer.
Lind had been Acra’s chief executive officer and chairman of the board since February 2020. The company established an “office of the president” to manage the transition to a new leader, consisting of the president, chief financial officer, managing director of business development, managing director of IT, and general counsel.
In remarks accompanying Acra's press release, Stone said his appointment wasn’t about a “turnaround” for the company. “The team has built something truly special,” he said. “My role now is to assess our strategy, work closely with our team and our board, and focus on accelerating our growth in the near term.”
Acra, which has been originating loans since 2013, reportedly originated or acquired over 7,000 loans last year with an unpaid principal balance of over $3.5 billion – with about 83% of those coming through the wholesale channel.
BlackRock’s deal to acquire HPS cleared its final regulatory hurdle on July 1, and saw the company create Private Financing Solutions (PFS) – an entity the company said would combine the two companies’ private credit, GP and LP solutions, as well as merging private and liquid CLO businesses into a single platform.
Acra said Monday that Stone would lead the company “into its next phase of accelerated growth and market leadership in the Non-QM space.”
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