Wells Closing Wholesale Offices

Within the next 45 to 60 days, Wells will shutter prime wholesale operations in six cities, the lender said in an e-mail statement. The action will include office closings in Bakersfield and Sacramento, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Pittsburgh, Penn.; and St. Petersburg, Fla.

“Work previously conducted in these sites will be transferred to other Wells Fargo locations,” the lender’s statement read. “Operating from fewer offices will create improved consistency from site-to-site and enable us to better serve customers while leveraging economies of scale.”

The realignment will help meet the objective to “be as efficient and cost-effective as possible,” according to Wells, the largest servicer and second-largest originator of mortgages in the nation, with a reported servicing portfolio of $1.423 trillion at the end of the first quarter and $294 billion in 2006 production.

Some prime wholesale staff will be displaced as a result, Wells said. Affected workers may be eligible for separation benefits and other positions within the company.

The number of resulting layoffs could not be obtained. Spokeswoman Debora Blume said Wells was not disclosing specific numbers of employees who will be affected by the reorganization, but said it was not going to engage in any WARN filings. The federal Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires a filing when there are plant closings involving at least 50 employees during a 30-day period.

The consolidation in the prime business sector comes on the heels of Wells’ exit from the correspondent business on Friday. Citing “changing market conditions,” Wells ceased taking nonprime loan applications from correspondents and laid off 13 workers in Louisiana.

In April, 441 nonprime layoffs were scheduled to be completed across Arizona, California and South Carolina.

The wave of nonprime layoffs followed Wells’ February announcement that it had tightened its credit policy for a portion of its nonprime lending business.