Reverse Mortgage Alums Secure Financing For Alternative Equity-tapping Product

Cornerstone Financing, a venture co-founded by former Reverse Mortgage Funding (RMF) CEO Craig Corn, has secured $285 million in financing through global investment firms Aquiline Capital Partners LP and Nomura.

The funding will go to support the company’s specialty home equity-tapping product known as the Cornerstone Home Equity Insurance/Investment Funding Solutions (CHEIFS). The product operates similarly to a shared equity investment. It allows homeowners to sell a portion of their home equity for cash to specifically fund “insurance, annuities, long-term care, and other financial and life planning options,” the company said.

“Partnering with these prestigious institutions affirms our commitment to providing advisors with innovative home equity solutions,” said Daniel Anderson, who co-founded Cornerstone Financing alongside Corn.

CHEIFS is currently available in four states: Arizona, California, Florida and Pennsylvania. Supported by the new funding round, the company has ambitions for a national expansion and is seeking new distribution partnerships.

The company describes the product’s purpose as aiming to “utilize previously untapped home equity to enable superior estate, insurance, and investment planning through trusted advisors.”

Timothy Gravely, partner and head of credit for Aquiline, added that the firm got involved due to the unrealized potential for using home equity to address retirement shortfalls.

“We are proud to support Cornerstone in the expansion of CHEIFS,” Gravely said. “This product addresses a critical gap we observed through our participation in the insurance market, and we are excited to back the solution.”

Corn is a longtime reverse mortgage industry professional, having served in leadership roles at Financial Freedom and EverBank Reverse Mortgage, and as vice president for MetLife’s reverse mortgage division. In 2013, Corn and his partners launched RMF, which became a leading reverse mortgage lender.

According to Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) endorsement data compiled by Reverse Market Insight (RMI) in early November 2022 — just prior to the halting of originations and its subsequent bankruptcy — RMF was the fifth-largest HECM lender in the country, with 4,804 endorsements over the 12-month period that ended Oct. 31 of that year.

Following the collapse of RMF and the assumption of its servicing portfolio by Ginnie Mae, Corn and Anderson went on to launch Cornerstone Financing in May 2023.