ORANGE COUNTY

Bank Buys Mortgage Rights: Imperial Credit Industries Inc., a mortgage banking firm in Newport Beach, said Friday that it will pay about $6.9 million to purchase the mortgage servicing rights on a $1-billion loan portfolio from the Resolution Trust Corp. The acquisition became effective Monday, though the sale price will not be paid until May. The deal gives Imperial Credit the right to bill borrowers and collect payments on loans totaling $5.3 billion while earning a servicing fee that will bring about $3.6 million in revenue for the first year. The fee equals 0.38 percentage points on each loan. The portfolio contains 4,055 loans averaging $253,000 each. The publicly held company, which is 40.3% owned by Imperial Bank in Inglewood, expects to continue to purchase mortgage servicing rights from a variety of mortgage companies and other lenders.