PennyMac said it will modify mortgages to help struggling borrowers at First National Bank of Nevada avoid foreclosure along the lines of the FDIC's plan put into effect at IndyMac and other institutions. Under that plan, at-risk borrowers pay interest rates of about 3 percent for five years. Rates are reduced so that borrowers aren't paying more than 38 percent of their pretax income on housing.

"We are excited about investing in and managing mortgages in this unique transaction where we share in the economics with the FDIC," Stanford Kurland, PennyMac's chairman and CEO, said in a statement.

The FDIC has used such structured arrangements in recent years in selling construction and development loans; this is its first application purely to home mortgages. Under the deal with PennyMac, the FDIC initially will receive 80 percent of the cash flow from the mortgages and the investor group will get the remaining 20 percent.

Over time, as revenue from mortgages reaches a certain threshold, the FDIC/investor split will become 60 percent vs. 40 percent, FDIC spokesman David Barr said. That gives the investors an incentive to extract a larger profit through a viable plan of reworked mortgages in an arrangement that is beneficial for both parties, he said.