Nelnet will incur losses of about $28 million related to the sale of nearly $1.3 billion worth of student loans, the company reported Wednesday in a securities filing.

Nelnet said it sold a loan portfolio worth $858 million on March 31 and another worth $428 million on Wednesday to a “large national bank active in student lending and education finance.”

The combined purchase price was about 98 percent of the principal balance of the loan portfolios and included about $842 million of consolidation loans, Nelnet said.

The company said it will record the losses in its fiscal first quarter, which ended March 31.

Investors seemed pleased by the news, as Nelnet’s stock rose nearly 4 percent Wednesday to close at $13.04 a share.

The loans were originated under the Federal Family Education Loan Program, a government-subsidized lending program.

In connection with the sale, the company also entered into an agreement with the purchaser for the existing and future loan origination and servicing activities. As a result, the company said it expects to continue generating revenue from the loan portfolios that were sold.

Nelnet spokesman Ben Kiser declined to name the bank that bought the loans.

He said the loans that were sold were waiting for long-term financing and because of credit market problems that have made it more difficult and more expensive to secure that financing, the decision was made to sell the loans and “reduce the volume of loans waiting to be financed permanently in this challenging environment.”

Kiser also said the opportunity to create a loan servicing agreement with a national bank was good for Nelnet in the long term.

Nelnet said that after the sale, it will still have $4.5 billion worth of FFELP loans in its portfolio.