Quarterly mortgage business and earnings for BB&T Corp. moved lower, though the residential loan servicing portfolio moved higher. An acquisition helped push up company-wide staffing and branches.
In the three months ended Sept. 30, Branch Banking and Trust Co. funded $5.039 billion in new home loans, according to the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company’s third-quarter earnings report.
The latest total was $0.459 billion lower than in the second-quarter.
Still, recent volume improved over the $4.999 billion originated from July 1 to Sept. 30 of last year.
Altogether, BB&T closed $14.572 billion in home loans during the first three quarters of 2015.
At $3.1 billion, correspondent acquisitions contributed the majority of the latest production total. Meanwhile, retail originations came to $1.9 billion.
Refinance share fell to 33 percent from the second-quarter’s 47 percent.
The lender’s total mortgage servicing portfolio grew to $122.580 billion as of Sept. 30, 2015, from $121.162 billion at the midpoint of this year. The servicing portfolio was lower, however, than $123.426 billion as of Sept. 30 a year ago.
The latest total included $90.446 billion in residential loans serviced for third parties and $32.134 billion in bank-owned loans serviced.
BB&T’s investment portfolio held residential assets of $31.070 billion as of the end of September 2015. These assets increased from the $30.054 billion reported as of June 30 but fell short of the $31.813 billion listed as of Sept. 30, 2014.
On residential loans, delinquency of 30 days or more improved two basis points from three months earlier to 2.79 percent at the end of the third-quarter 2015. The delinquency rate also saw an improvement from the figure provided for the same point last year: 79 BPS lower.
BB&T’s commercial real estate assets swelled to $17.120 billion from $14.006 billion as of the close of the second quarter and $13.395 billion as of the last day of the third-quarter 2014.
Commercial mortgages at $13.313 billion and construction-and-development loans at $3.807 billion comprised the most-recent CRE holdings.
Mortgage banking income before taxes shrank to $97 million from $116 million earned in the second-quarter 2015. The decline was even greater compared to the upwardly revised third-quarter 2014 income of $129 million.
At the holding-company level, income before taxes showed a marked improvement.
Third-quarter income increased from $0.6 billion in the second quarter to $0.8 billion. The firm also accounted for higher earnings compared to the upwardly revised $0.7 billion at same point last year.
BB&T had a quarterly average of 35,002 employees as of Sept. 30, 2015. That was 2,404 more staff members than at the end of the second quarter. As well, the most-recent headcount was more than the 32,866 workers accounted for as of Sept. 30 last year.
The number of banking offices ended last month at 2,150, significantly increasing from 1,903 as of mid-2015.
Growth in headcount and branch count was helped by the acquisition of Susquehanna Bancshares. In addition, an agreement was reached to acquire National Penn, BB&T Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kelly S. King said in the report.
