PASADENA, Calif. — Wescom is out of the wholesale mortgage lending business.

An official notice the $2.8 billion credit union sent to its brokers is posted on The Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter (http://ml-implode.com/), a year-old Web site that attracts 100,000 visitors daily, and has been sourced by the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and Bloomberg publications.

The notice, dated Dec. 12, states, “After careful consideration, Wescom has elected to exit the wholesale lending business for residential real estate loans, effective immediately.”

Wescom posted a $6.9 million annualized net loss and a $35.6 million annualized provision for loan losses as of Sept. 30, per NCUA reports. Both figures are quite different from Wescom's Sept. 30 '06 numbers, when the credit union recorded an $18.5 million net profit, and only provisioned $16.2 million for loan losses.

Credit Union Times received a tip from former Wescom employee, who said she was laid off last month, along with more than 100 others. The employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said employees were told the layoffs were a result of financial performance concerns. Wescom's entire wholesale lending department was laid off, she said, as well as employees in marketing, community relations, and member service.

Requests for an interview or a statement from Wescom were denied.

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to CUTimes.com, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited CUTimes.com content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking credit union news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Shared Accounts podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical coverage of the commercial real estate and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, GlobeSt.com and ThinkAdvisor.com
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Lending