IndyMac Bank FSB has picked up several branches from the retail subsidiary of First Magnus Financial Corp. -- which collapsed last month. The move marks IndyMac's second recent foray into retail expansion.

At least five Charter Funding of Hawaii offices are reopening as IndyMac Bank branches as the Pasadena, Calif.-based lender strengthens its presence in Hawaii.

Charter Funding was one of the retail subsidiaries of Tucson-based First Magnus, which stopped lending and began shutting down its offices on Aug. 16 and filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code five days later.

IndyMac announced that it was reopening more than 90 former branches of bankrupt American Home Mortgage in 20 states, including Hawaii. IndyMac now will have offices in Honolulu that had been branches of both Charter Funding and American Home Mortgage.

"We were Charter Funding but now we're IndyMac," an employee in the Honolulu office told MortgageDaily.com.

Phones at two other Charter Funding offices were being answered as "Platinum Mortgage," but further details were not available. Those two are offices in Kahului, with a staff of seven, including six loan officers, according to the manager, and in Lahaina, which, an employee said, had been Charter Funding's largest office.

Charter Funding had other offices in Aiea, Kihei, Lihue and Maui.

"We've been able to keep all our Charter Funding offices open," Charter Funding's former vice president and regional manager David Quandt told MortgageDaily.com.

He said Charter Funding had about 90 employees in its seven offices.

Quandt said he has "already been hired" by IndyMac. He would say nothing further and IndyMac spokesman Grove Nichols said what position Quandt would fill was in the discussion stages.

IndyMac was also meeting with Charter Funding's former employees about working for IndyMac in the former Charter Funding offices, he said. "We're interested in hiring their people and we're talking to their people," he said.

IndyMac also is in discussions with the bankruptcy court about taking over Charter Funding's office leases and acquiring the equipment in those offices, according to Nichols.

"That's an involved process we're working through now," he said.

Charter Funding was established in 1998 as a subsidiary of First Magnus, which had been founded two years earlier. Charter Funding, which originated about $90 million in loans a month, according to Quandt, had boasted that it was the largest privately held lender in Hawaii. Similarly, First Magnus, prior to closing, described itself as the nation's largest privately held mortgage bank and the 17th largest mortgage banker overall.