TierOne Corp. of Lincoln, Neb., said Monday that it will close all nine of its loan production offices and will focus instead on lending through bank branches in its home markets of Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska.
The offices set to close are in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, and North Carolina. The offices employ 20 people, five of whom TierOne would retain to assist with loan servicing.
The $3.4 billion-asset company opened the loan production offices from 2002 to 2005 to take advantage of the expansive growth in residential construction and commercial real estate in various parts of the county, while offsetting the slow growth of its Heartland markets. Now that the residential real estate market has slowed nationwide, TierOne said, it is looking once again to its own backyard.
"Due to the continued housing and economic challenges in many areas of the country, TierOne is refocusing our lending efforts in our existing bank market area," Gilbert G. Lundstrom, its chairman and chief executive officer, said in a press release. "These efforts, combined with the greater stability of the Midwest lending environment, are expected to contribute to our growth and improve asset quality."
The plan to centralize its operations was announced less than a week after TierOne said it had sold $63.8 million of delinquent residential construction loans in southwest Florida it had purchased from TransLand Financial Services.
