Description
Axos Financial is a bank holding company based in Las Vegas, Nevada and is the parent of Axos Bank, a direct bank.
Origin and name change
Axos originated as a company known as BofI Holding, Inc., which was founded by Jerry Englert and Gary Lewis Evans with $14 million of startup capital. BofI was incorporated in Delaware in 1999 and began operations as Bank of Internet on July 4, 2000. The start date of July 4 was purposely chosen because it showed that the bank would be open on a day that other banks were closed due to Independence Day.
BofI became a public company via an initial public offering on March 15, 2005. It offered 3,052,745 shares of common stock at a price of $11.50 per share.
On October 1, 2018, BofI Holding re-branded as Axos Financial, and switched its stock exchange from NASDAQ to the NYSE.
Lending practices
The bank has made larger loans to wealthy individuals that other banks have turned down, albeit at higher interest rates.
In March 2022, Newsweek and Forbes reported that Axos made a $100 million mortgage loan to Donald Trump's company. The loan followed an announcement by Trump's former accounting firm stating that the Trump organization's financial statements should "no longer be relied on."
Approximately 71.5% of the company's loans are secured by properties in California, 11.8% are secured by properties in New York, and 5.1% are secured by properties in Florida.
