Home lending slowed, and the mortgage servicing portfolio retreated at BB&T Corp. Still, the company increased pre-tax earnings from mortgage banking.
Branch Banking and Trust
Co. reported in its fourth-quarter financials that it originated $3.888 billion in residential loans during the three months ended Dec. 31.
Retail originations represented
$1.9 billion of the volume, and correspondent acquisitions accounted for $2.0 billion.
Production dropped from the prior period, when $4.999 billion in home loans were funded. Retail originations were off just 8 percent, but correspondent activity sank by nearly a third.
Overall business stalled compared to the final three months of 2013, a period that saw $5.344 billion in closings.
For all of last year, mortgage production
came in at $17.401 billion, plunging from $31.596 billion originated in 2013.
Total loans serviced by BB&T finished 2014 at $122.257 billion. The bank reduced the portfolio from $123.426 billion
as of the close of the third quarter. Still, the servicing portfolio sits higher than $121.156 billion one year prior.
BB&T said that its servicing portfolio included
$90.230 billion serviced for third parties as of the latest date.
Residential loans owned by the
Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company were reduced to $31.090 billion from $31.813 billion as of Sept. 30. But BB&T has bolstered its residential portfolio compared to $24.648 billion as of Dec. 31, 2013.
The balance sheet also included
$13.457 billion in commercial real estate assets. The total increased from $13.395 billion as of the end of September and $12.610 billion as of the end of 2013.
The year-end 2014 figure was comprised of $10.722 billion in commercial mortgages and $2.735 billion in construction-and-development loans.
BB&T said that its residential mortgage banking business earned $132 million before taxes, slightly more than the third quarter’s $128 million. The mortgage unit has seen a significant improvement since the fourth-quarter 2013, when income was $80 million.
In the report, BB&T Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kelly S. King called mortgage banking performance “strong.”
Prior to income taxes, income at the bank-holding company level climbed to $845 million from $695 million and was even better than $831 million in the final quarter of 2013.
As of Dec. 31, 2014, BB&T maintained a staff of 32,264 full-time employees. Headcount diminished from 32,866 people three months earlier and 33,544 a year earlier.
BB&T reduced branch count by three to 1,839 as of the fourth-quarter 2014.
