New York Group Financial institution is closing 69% of Flagstar’s retail home-lending workplaces and shifting to a branch-only mannequin for that sector, the financial institution stated Tuesday in a fourth-quarter earnings report.
The transfer lends credence to studies by HousingWire and the Detroit Free Press that a whole bunch of Flagstar’s mortgage workers had been laid off with “no warning” final week.
NYCB’s $2.6 billion merger with Flagstar closed Dec. 1. Alessandro DiNello — Flagstar’s outgoing CEO, who now serves as a nonexecutive chairman on NYCB’s board — instructed the Free Press on the time that no department closures or “notable discount[s] in power” had been deliberate in reference to the merger.
The exact variety of layoffs is unclear, however Flagstar’s mortgage origination-related workforce stands at 800, in keeping with American Banker. That’s down from 2,100 in 2021.
Flagstar reduce its mortgage workers by 20%, or 420 folks, early final yr, when enterprise quantity started falling, the Free Press reported. It reduce one other 7% on the finish of the third quarter, in keeping with American Banker.
“They have been chopping and chopping and chopping [but] on the finish of the day, we … needed to make it possible for this enterprise isn’t dropping any cash,” NYCB CEO Thomas Cangemi stated, in keeping with American Banker. “The objective right here was to not bleed.”
The cuts imply the financial institution presumably will now not supply new mortgage lending outdoors its nine-state department footprint. Flagstar’s web site lists 94 residence mortgage facilities — a few of that are in states comparable to Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Carolina, Illinois, Colorado and Washington — that don’t have any Flagstar or NYCB branches.
In NYCB’s earnings report, Cangemi referred to as the discount “among the many most tough selections our management workforce has to make,” however added the transfer would depart the financial institution’s “place inside the mortgage business intact.”
NYCB is hardly the primary financial institution to downsize in residence lending as rising rates of interest curbed shopper demand within the sector. Wells Fargo this month stated it could streamline its mortgage enterprise to give attention to current clients and nonwhite communities. The financial institution has initiated a number of rounds of layoffs since April. JPMorgan Chase and Citi have launched job cuts of their very own.
NYCB executives stated Tuesday the financial institution expects to incur $12 million to $13 million in one-time restructuring prices — principally in severance pay.
The financial institution expects to understand $125 million in price financial savings from the Flagstar merger, not counting mortgage restructuring prices, Cangemi stated, in keeping with American Banker. Half of that ought to come this yr, Cangemi stated.
The financial institution noticed a 46% drop in annual origination quantity in 2022, and expects that determine to fall one other 25% this yr, Cangemi stated.
