Lennar Corp.’s wholesale lending business is calling it quits, bringing to four the number of wholesalers that have closed down this year. Among other recent mortgage-related casualties were two banks, one credit union and a mortgage trade group.
On Friday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency closed down Millennium Bank, N.A. The regulator said that unsafe and unsound practices led to substantial dissipation of assets and earnings.
“The OCC also found that the bank incurred losses that depleted its capital, the bank is critically undercapitalized, and there is no reasonable prospect that the bank will become adequately capitalized,” the OCC stated.
The 15-year-old bank had just 23 employees. Residential loans on its balance sheet totaled $23 million, while commercial real estate loans amounted to $24 million and construction-and-development assets were less than $1 million.
Parent Millennium Bankshares Corp. entered a written agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in 2008.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver of the Sterling, Va.-based bank. Following a secret bidding process, the winning bid was awarded to WashingtonFirst Bank, which acquired all of Millennium’s $130 million in total assets and assumed all of its $122 million in deposits for a 1 percent premium.
The FDIC expects its Deposit Insurance Fund to be depleted by $8 million in order to cover associated losses.
Also failing on Friday was Vantage Point Bank, which was seized by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. The state appointed the FDIC as receiver.
Vantage Point was founded in 2007. As of the end of last year, the bank had 42 employees, plummeting from 238 people a year earlier. Residential assets were $29 million, while CRE holdings were $11 million.
The FDIC awarded its winning bid to First Choice Bank, which is acquiring all of the Horsham, Pa.-based bank’s $64 million in assets and assuming all of its $63 million in total deposits for a 1.5 percent premium.
Vantage Point is expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $9 million. It was the fifth FDIC-insured bank to fail so far in 2014.
The Minnesota Department of Commerce seized St. Francis Campus Credit Union on Feb. 14 and appointed the National Credit Union Administration as liquidating agent. The credit union was chartered in 1963 to serve employees of the St. Francis Campus and their relatives.
Central Minnesota Credit Union assumed the Little Falls, Minn., institution’s 3,400 members and $51 million in assets as well as its shares.
Mortgage Daily has tracked two credit union failures so far in 2014.
Eagle Funding issued a notice last week to its mortgage brokers indicating that it will no longer be available for wholesale business.
Loans already approved in the pipeline will be processed and closed, but the company stopped accepting new loans submissions on Feb. 28.
“This decision was made due to the continued low levels of volume and the challenges the current market is facing with the CFPB regulations,” the notice said.
The company, which operated as part of Universal American Mortgage Company LLC doing business as Eagle Home Mortgage, was part of Lennar.
The Mortgage Insurance Companies of America has folded, according to a statement on its website.
“MICA has discontinued operations,” a statement on its website says. “Please direct inquiries or requests for assistance to [email protected]“
Membership at the trade group, which was founded in 1973, hand dwindled to just three companies — Genworth Mortgage Insurance Corp., MGIC Guaranty Insurance Corp. and Radian Guaranty Inc.
In all this year, Mortgage Daily has tracked 12 mortgage-related entities that have failed or been closed down — including four wholesale lenders.
