Lender Buys Gibraltar Site

A Pasadena mortgage banking firm has purchased the sprawling Simi Valley building formerly occupied by defunct Gibraltar Savings and will move 400 to 500 employees there by the end of summer.

In addition to transferring hundreds of its current employees, the mortgage company, Countrywide Credit Industries Inc., expects to hire some Ventura County residents at the facility.

Starting late this month, Countrywide will move its loan servicing division and most of its data-processing operations into the two-story structure on Madera Road, said Richard Lewis, Countrywide’s senior vice president and chief administrative officer.

He said Countrywide, which says it is the nation’s largest independent mortgage banker, paid the Resolution Trust Corp. $16 million for the 300,000 square-foot building, which formerly was used by Gibraltar’s loan servicing and data-processing units.

“The building is wired for computers, so we expect to reduce costs from the outset in our data-processing department,” Lewis said. “We also wanted the building because our loan servicing division badly needed more space. Our business is growing very rapidly.”

Countrywide now employs 1,500 people in two buildings in downtown Pasadena, Lewis said. “We realize some of our employees may choose not to move to Simi Valley. If that happens, we’ll replace them with local people. We expect other openings to develop as well.”

Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s senior managing director and chief operating officer, said in a statement that the company might someday build an additional 350,000- to 650,000-square-foot facility on the 44-acre property. The site is large enough “to provide for Countrywide’s growth over the next 10 to 15 years,” he said.