Organization and Basis of Presentation

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011

Organization and Basis of Presentation [Abstract]

ORGANIZATION AND BASIS OF PRESENTATION

1. ORGANIZATION AND BASIS OF PRESENTATION

Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A., together with its subsidiaries, (which may be referred to as Altisource™, the Company, we, us or our) is a provider of services focused on high value, technology-enabled, knowledge-based functions principally related to real estate and mortgage portfolio management, asset recovery and customer relationship management. We were incorporated under the laws of Luxembourg on November 4, 1999 as Ocwen Luxembourg S.à r.l., renamed Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.à r.l. on May 12, 2009 and converted into Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. on June 5, 2009. We became a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ Global Select market under the symbol “ASPS” as of August 10, 2009, see “Separation” below.

In February 2010, we acquired all of the outstanding membership interests of The Mortgage Partnership of America, L.L.C. (“MPA™”). MPA was formed as a Missouri limited liability company to serve as the manager of Best Partners Mortgage Cooperative, Inc. (“BPMC™”) doing business as Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative (“Lenders One ^®”). Lenders One is a national alliance of independent mortgage bankers (“Members”) that provides its Members with education and training along with revenue enhancing, cost reducing and market share expanding opportunities. In April 2011, we acquired Springhouse, LLC (“Springhouse™”) an appraisal management company that utilizes a nationwide panel of appraisers to provide real estate appraisals principally to mortgage originators, including the members of Lenders One, and real estate asset managers. In July 2011, we acquired the assembled workforce of a sub-contractor (“Tracmail”) in India that performed asset recovery services (see Note 4).

We conduct our operations through three reporting segments: Mortgage Services, Financial Services and Technology Services. In addition, we report our corporate related expenditures as a separate segment (see Note 19 for a description of our business segments).

Separation – On August 10, 2009, we became a stand-alone public company in connection with our separation from Ocwen Financial Corporation (“Ocwen^®”) (the “Separation”). Prior to the Separation, our businesses were wholly-owned subsidiaries of Ocwen. On the date of Separation, Ocwen distributed all of the Altisource common stock to Ocwen’s shareholders (the “Distribution”).

In connection with the Separation, we entered into various agreements with Ocwen that define our relationship after the Separation including a Separation Agreement, a Tax Matters Agreement, an Employee Matters Agreement, an Intellectual Property Agreement, a Data Center and Disaster Recovery Agreement, a Technology Services Agreement, a Transition Services Agreement and certain long-term servicing contracts (collectively, the “Agreements”).

Basis of Presentation – Beginning August 10, 2009, after our assets and liabilities were formally contributed by Ocwen to Altisource pursuant to the terms of the Separation Agreement, our financial statements have been presented on a consolidated basis for financial reporting purposes. Our consolidated financial statements include the assets and liabilities, revenues and expenses directly attributable to our operations.

For periods prior to the date of Separation, these financial statements include allocations of expenses from Ocwen for corporate functions including insurance, employee benefit plan expense and allocations for certain centralized administration costs for executive management, treasury, real estate, accounting, auditing, tax, risk management, internal audit, human resources and benefits administration. For additional information, see Note 3.

The financial statements for the period ended December 31, 2009 also do not necessarily reflect what our consolidated results of operations, financial position and cash flows would have been had we operated as an independent company during the entire periods presented. For instance, as an independent public company, Altisource incurs costs for maintaining a separate Board of Directors, obtaining a separate audit, relocating certain executive management and hiring additional personnel.