Branch Banking and Trust Co. has committed to stay in the warehouse lending business that it inherited with its acquisition of failed Colonial Bank.
BB&T Corp. assumed all of Colonial’s $20 billion in deposits and acquired $22 billion of its assets from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Aug. 14 when Colonial was seized by the Alabama State Banking Department.
Included in the sale was the warehouse lending operation.
In a news release today, Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T indicated that after evaluating the warehouse lending division, it made a decision to keep the operation going.
Jeff Ellison, a 25-year BB&T employee who most recently served as a senior credit officer, was named president of the division, today’s statement said. Ellison, 47, will oversee the Orlando, Fla.-based unit’s day-to-day operations and manage its 60 employees.
“This is a commercial product that dovetails nicely with our retail mortgage business,” Robert Fentress, the commercial finance president at BB&T, said in the statement. “We feel it offers excellent growth opportunities given our client relationship model.”
