MetLife Bank has hired two former Sovereign Bank executives to run a new warehouse lending operation.
| The bank is in the process of starting a residential mortgage warehouse lending group, Brian Lewand told Mortgage Daily in a phone interview. Lewand is the managing director and head of capital markets for MetLife Bank.
It’s the bank’s first foray into warehouse lending, Lewand said. “We just think that there’s market opportunity and that it’s a natural fit for the MetLife Bank,” Lewand explained, “given our presence in the residential mortgage space.” Charley Clark has been recruited to oversee the new operation. Clark, who will report to Lewand, ran the warehouse lending group at Sovereign Bank in Boston until 2009. Another former Sovereign executive, Paul Chmielinski, was also recruited for the warehouse business and will report to Clark. Clark and Chmielinski both started at MetLife Bank around two weeks ago and will operate from Boston.
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MetLife photo of Brian Lewand
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The company this year already has started building the operational platform for the warehouse lending business and has an operations staff in place, according to Lewand. What still needs to be developed are the credit area and relationship management group.
Lewand declined to project how many hires might be involved or how many customers they hope to sign up.
But he did say that the bank hopes to establish a “meaningful presence” in the warehouse lending sector and become a “meaningful player.”
MetLife reported $5.1 billion in residential originations during the second-quarter. It shared the title of 10th-biggest residential lender with retail lender Quicken Loans Inc.
