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Aurora Bank FSB of Wilmington, Del., is closing its Missouri-based correspondent lending unit and laying off all 146 employees in its office there.
March 2 -
The 'on-again/off-again' sale process has started once again for Aurora Loan Services, the Colorado-based mortgage banking division of Aurora Bank FSB, according to industry officials.
August 1
New York Community Bancorp Inc. (NYB) has agreed to take on $2.3 billion of deposits from Aurora Bank FSB, a former mortgage arm of Lehman Brothers that has been winding down.
Wilmington, Del.-based Aurora is paying New York Community $24 million to assume the liabilities. They comprise $1.5 billion of brokered certificates of deposits, $800 million in retail and institutional certificates of deposit and $30 million in money market accounts.
Joseph Ficalora, New York Community's president and chief executive, called the deal "an attractive opportunity to assume low-cost funding," in a press release announcing the transaction on Friday.
New York Community has $42 billion of assets and 242 branches in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Florida and Arizona. Its strategy through the years has been to buy banks for deposits it uses to fund its core business of New York-area apartment building lending.
Sandler O'Neill & Partners advised New York Community. Keefe Bruyette & Woods (KBW) and co-adviser Deutsche Bank Securities advised Aurora Bank.
The $4.3 billion-asset Aurora and its servicing unit, Aurora Loan Services, survived Lehman's 2008 bankruptcy and have been up for sale on orders from Lehman's bankruptcy trustee. Its mortgage operations began winding down in February because of a lack of buyers.
Earlier in March Aurora closed its Missouri correspondent lending division and agreed to sell $63 million mortgage servicing rights to Nationstar Mortgage and its affiliate, Newcastle Investment Corp.
Aurora lost $83 million in 2011 compared with a 2010 profit of $150 million.
