Imperial’s Mortgage Servicing Unit Sold : Banking: La Jolla-based American Residential Mortgage buys the unit of thrift ruined by junk bonds.
Federal regulators, who are dismantling Imperial Federal Savings Assn., sold the S&L;’s mortgage servicing division Monday to La Jolla-based American Residential Mortgage Corp.
Federal officials were not available for comment, and American Residential officials declined to discuss the purchase price.
On Friday, the RTC sold Imperial’s 40 Southern California branch offices to Newport Beach-based Household Bank. San Francisco-based Bank of the West acquired Imperial’s 38 branch offices in Northern California. Imperial Federal, which was operated by the RTC, acquired management of Imperial Savings & Loan’s assets when the San Diego-based S&L; failed in February 1990.
American Residential, which acquired “certain fixed assets” of Imperial’s mortgage servicing business from the federal Resolution Trust Corp, will hire all of the Imperial operation’s 175 employees, said Judith Field, American Residential’s chief financial officer. American Residential will move the Imperial mortgage servicing business to its corporate headquarters building in La Jolla.
In a related transaction, the RTC awarded American Residential a contract to service Imperial’s $7-billion portfolio of loans and loan servicing contracts. American Residential also has joined the bidding for $4.2 billion of Imperial’s loan-servicing contracts that now are held by the RTC, Field said.
American Residential was Imperial’s mortgage banking subsidiary until Jan. 1, 1988, when the business was sold to First Nationwide Bank, a San Francisco-based subsidiary of Ford Motor Co. Last year, First Nationwide sold the company to a management group led by American Residential Chief Executive John Robbins.
About 200 of American Mortgage’s 750 employees, including many former Imperial employees, work at the company’s La Jolla headquarters building, Field said. American Residential was attracted to the Imperial operation in part because its managers were familiar with the “quality of the people working there,” Fields said.
American Residential began negotiating with the RTC for Imperial’s mortgage servicing division in November. Fields said. The acquisition was completed because “mortgage servicing is the aspect of the company that we intend to build up,” Fields said.
American Residential operates 34 loan origination offices in 14 states. In addition to originating loans, it services about 20,000 loans for financial institutions, Field said. The RTC contract signed Monday increased American Residential’s loan-servicing portfolio to about 120,000 loans, Field said.
