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| Quarterly mortgage originations doubled at Wells Fargo & Co., while quarterly earnings were the highest ever. The company expects exceptional mortgage banking results to continue.First-quarter mortgage fundings were $100 billion, the company said in a preliminary earnings statement today. Business was double Wells’ fourth-quarter 2008 activity and higher than $66 billion a year earlier.
The last time volume was this heavy was in the third-quarter 2006 — when reported originations reached $104 billion. Wells generated more than 800,000 loan applications for $175 billion in the latest quarter, climbing from an already healthy $116 billion in the fourth quarter. During just March, new applications were a record $83 billion. The unclosed application pipeline ended the first quarter at $100 billion, up from $71 billion at the end of 2008. Wells Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins called mortgage banking results “exceptionally strong.” First-quarter workouts were more than 150,000. The San Francisco-based institution expects first-quarter net income of $3 billion — a vast improvement from the fourth-quarter 2008 loss $2.5 billion and better than the $2.0 billion first-quarter 2008 profit. The results represented “record net income.” Results at legacy Wachovia Corp. operation — which Wells acquired on Dec. 31, 2008 — were “strong.” Dividends to be paid on capital purchase program investments by the U.S. Department of the Treasury are estimated at $372 million. |
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