Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc., a California-based mortgage REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) announced on Monday that it has reached an agreement to acquire the special servicing platform of UBS AG. UBS is a global financial services company, with its headquarters in Basel & Zurich, Switzerland.

The New York branch of UBS has agreed to contribute specified balances of loans to the platform as part of a strategic alliance with Impac. As per the deal, Impac will issue to UBS, warrants to purchase up to 2 percent of its current outstanding stock.

Impac will combine the special servicing platform with its master servicing, default department and real estate auction business.

According to Impac Chief Executive, Joseph Tomkinson, “This acquisition will allow the company to take advantage of the existing market conditions to subservice for others, along with, buying and then servicing ourselves currently available mortgage assets in the secondary market. The special servicing platform will be combined with our master servicing, default department, and real estate auction business to synergistically work together as a fully integrated platform to maximize the success of opportunistic investments in mortgage assets. We believe this will be a valuable component as the Company moves ahead on executing certain proposed initiatives.”

On May 14, Impac had about 76.1 million shares of common stock outstanding. Based on the company’s closing price on Friday of 81 cents, UBS would receive warrants to acquire about 1.5 million shares of Impac’s stock, worth about $1.2 million.

Earlier in the month, Impac refinanced debt with a term loan from UBS. As part of the refinancing deal, Impac agreed to issue UBS warrants to purchase up to 7 percent of the mortgage company’s outstanding common stock.