FirstBank Mortgage - Wholesale

Update: 2007-10-27 Employees of FirstBank are beginning to receive the following announcement from Mark Turkcan by email... on a Saturday:

It's with a great degree of sadness that I need to inform you that effective Wednesday, October 31st, we will begin to take steps to cease operations in Irvine and Walnut Creek. I understand fully the impact this decision has on each of your lives and as such, there has been a great deal of thought put into it and one that I assure you has not been made lightly.

However, the brutal conditions the industry has experienced over the course of the past ten months in concert with a lack of foreseeable significant improvement, make it impossible for us to continue. Like many companies who have already made a similar decision, the impact of repurchases, fraud, thinner margins, lower volumes and declining real estate values is simply to great for us to overcome.

My goal is to facilitate an orderly conclusion for our employees and Brokers. In that regard, Connie Fletcher will be in Irvine on October 30th and in Walnut Creek on November 5th and 6th to communicate specific time frames, your compensation status and employee benefits.

I want to personally thank each of you for your dedication and professionalism and wish you the very best as you move forward.

Mark

Original Post: 2007-10-26 FirstBank Mortgage, Irvine CA (Orange County) has "pulled the plug on their Mortgage Division" according to a source, "Effective Oct 31st."

According to numerous emails, they will fund out the existing pipeline but all loans must be funded by November 30, 2007. They opened in 1906.

We received the following memo from multiple sources today:

There isn't sufficient time to set up a conference call for today because shortly everyone will be receiving an email from Mark Turkcan (our President). First Bank has decided to close our facility effective Wednesday, October 31st. I am sorry but I am not in a position right now to answer most all of your likely questions (I hope to be so on Monday). Joe and I (Chris Dorsa and Jim Chorman too) were informed of this decision awhile ago.

We will have a conference call Monday at 10:00 a.m. PST and at that time I will try to answer everyone's question to the best of my ability. The dial in number is 800-4XX-5XXX, ext. 4XXX.

Craig

Craig R. Ahrens
Executive Vice President
First Bank Mortgage
1 Technology Drive, Bldg. A
Irvine, CA 92618"

To take a quote from their web site:

As the nations largest independently-owned bank, we, at First Bank want you to know you can count of us to continue to receive friendly, personalized service along with a comprehensive array of mortgage banking products...

According to FirstBank, they specialized in Alt-A Fixed and ARM products, Alt-B, Stand-Alone 2nds and several varieties of Options ARMs.

This is a developing story, so please check back, and if you are affected by this, send us an email please. We WILL talk or email you this weekend! If you have more information regarding this year's volume, or number of employees affected, please let us know.