Home Capital Group Inc. hired bankers for a possible sale after the Canadian mortgage lender secured a $2-billion loan from the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan to stem a run on deposits following a regulatory probe.

Home Capital didn’t identify the lender in a statement Thursday, though people familiar with the process said the health care workers pension fund is backing the loan. The Toronto-based lender hired RBC Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets to advise on “strategic options” after it secured the one-year loan, according to the statement.

A Home Capital sale could be the next step for the struggling mortgage lender facing allegations by Ontario’s securities regulator that it misled investors on disclosures tied to an internal probe that found 45 outside brokers falsified income information on mortgage applications. High-interest deposits have fallen over the past four weeks, making it harder for Home Capital to fund its mortgages.

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A sale becomes more likely if the firm can’t raise guaranteed investment securities deposits, GMP Securities analyst Stephen Boland said earlier in a note.

“We believe HCG’s ability to raise GIC deposits and maintain operations is uncertain,” Boland said in the note before Home Capital’s statement Thursday. “Unless GIC costs stabilize, a run off scenario or sale is a growing possibility.”

The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) is a Toronto-based plan, which represents more than 321,000 health care workers in Ontario, with assets of about $70 billion.

HOOPP president and chief executive officer Jim Keohane sits on Home Capital’s board and is a shareholder of the mortgage lender. Home Capital’s external spokesperson Boyd Erman declined to comment. Representatives for HOOPP and Keohane didn’t return calls seeking comment.

Richard Leblanc, a law professor at York University, said the loan appears to represent a conflict for Keohane given his two roles.

“It’s a conflict, absolutely,” Leblanc said from Toronto. “An independent director should not have any commercial relationship with the entity at all. I mean, he can loan the money, but he should resign from the board.”

The one-year credit line from HOOPP has a 10-per-cent interest rate on outstanding balances and a 2.5-per-cent rate on undrawn amounts. The finalized agreement follows an announcement early Wednesday that Home Capital had reached a non-binding agreement in principle with an institutional investor for the loan.

Home Capital is also required to make an initial $1-billion draw and pay a non-refundable commitment fee of $100 million. The loan is secured by a pool of mortgages originated by Home Trust, the company’s mortgage origination subsidiary.

Boland said estimates on a sale price for Home Capital would be speculative, but said commercial banks may be interested. Home Capital’s market value has plunged to $445 million.

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“We think this is at a substantial premium to current levels,” he said. “We believe HCG’s book may be attractive to several banks that could run the business with materially lower funding costs, particularly if they have regulatory support for the deal.”

Meanwhile, short-sellers are betting against Home Capital and rival mortgage lender Equitable Group Inc., with short interest positions surging since mid April. Shares of the two firms are the most shorted among Canadian financial companies, with investors having short interest in more than 56 per cent of the shares available to the public, according to data compiled by Markit. Genworth MI Canada Inc., a mortgage insurer, also has about 31 per cent of its stock shorted, the data show.