Impac Lending Group - Wholesale & Retail

Update - 2008-02-04: With the announcement of their 2007 third quarter results on 2007-12-21, Impac said "the Company has closed substantially all of its mortgage operations, with the exception of a small retail platform." That, too, is now gone. Pinnacle Financial Corporation, the last remaining vestige of Impac's retail operations, closed it's doors as of 2008-01-31.

We began receiving emails about the shutdown in mid-January, but there was confusion as to whether it was still part of Impac or was left independent from the Tri-Star acquisition last May. Their web site is now down, and a recording on the corporate office phone's auto-attendant says they have ceased operations.

At the time of Impac's acquisition, Pinnacle had between 1,500 to 2,000 employees and 133 offices licensed in 19 states. Layoffs and office closures began in earnest in September, 2007. Buried in the earnings release was this ominous statement:

"Based on current market conditions, the Company also expects to sell or wind down its remaining retail platform, with exception of a small department to support our loss mitigation efforts, by year end."

Former employees tell us they were notified of the closure in December. We were unable to obtain a copy of any formal announcement that may have been sent out. Although the main page of the web site is gone, the internal pages still exist, such as this one, where all the Loan Officers have been removed from the company directory.

Update - 11-19-07: We had reported before Impac may continue Retail Operations. Along with the announcement of the delay of it's 10-Q filing to the SEC, it seems there is an official shutdown of Retail operations at Impac. The Retail division, known as Tri-Star Lending Group has discontinued operations, according to a Yahoo news item (bold emphasis added by us):

"...because the Company needs more time to properly record and disclose its recently discontinued warehouse lending operations, commercial operations and the cessation of the origination and purchase of non-prime mortgage loans."

www.tristarlending.com used to be the web address, but now it goes directly to a generic Impac web site.

To help confuse the issue, the Yahoo article quotes Mr. Joseph R. Tomkinson, Chairman and CEO of Impac Mortgage Holdings, saying, "Further, as a result of our decision to discontinue the mortgage operations, (except selected retail originations), commercial operations and warehouse lending operations, the Company has substantially reduced its operating and personnel expenses."

So for now, Impac has officially "discontinued operations," shut down the Tri-Star web site, and decided to discontinue mortgage Operations "(except selected retail operations)."

Who knows?

Please email us if you can figure this out.

Original Story - 9-20-07: Impac Lending has ceased operations for warehouse and commercial lending and "substantially all of its mortgage lending", with the exception of some retail lending. Per an 8-K filed today:

On September 18, 2007, the Company issued a press release reporting that it is currently exiting certain business operations, which include warehouse lending, commercial lending and substantially all of its mortgage lending, except for certain corporate owned retail facilities which are originating conforming mortgage loans from the Pinnacle acquisition. A copy of the press release is attached to this Form 8-K as exhibit 99.1 and is incorporated herein by reference.

The press release can be found at the above link as Exhibit 99.1 to the 8-K filing.

Ailing/Watch post from 2007-08-29:

Many have written in to note that Impac Lending has decided to exit its Wholesale operations (At least, the external ops). We have yet to hear an official release from Impac as to such closure. In the meantime, we are putting Impac on our "Ailing/Watch list" until we can confirm this news.

We have received numerous forwarded emails apparently from Impac employees that allege that Impac has exited wholesale. Per one email that was forwarded to us apparently sent from an Impac employee:

From: XXXXXX@impaclending.com [mailto: XXXXXX@impaclending.com]

Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 11:16 AM

Subject: Impac Has Elected to Exit Outside Wholesale Lending

Tri Star/Impac Customers:

It's been a pleasure working with all of you over the past 3 years...and some of you much longer than that. ...

Thanks for all the business over the years and good luck in the crazy mortgage market right now.

Another source has written in to note the following:

Impac has chosen to exit the wholesale lending platform, effective today. Impac corporate in Irvine CA remains open, but the Orlando/Winter Park fulfillment center is no longer operational, and I am no longer connected to Impac. Impac is not accepting new loans from brokers.

For brokers with loans in the Impac pipeline, I will contact you individually as to how those loans will be handled.

And a third tipster writes on to say:

It is with a heavy heart I bring you the news Impac has elected to exit the Outside Wholesale Division. They have chosen to keep a small Inside Sales Model. I have really enjoyed working with all of you. Each AE is handling the execution of their existing pipeline to prevent any loan interruption. I hope to work with each of you at some point in the near future.

We are eagerly awaiting an official release from Impac Group, which is a public company. If anyone can provide estimates as to the peak size of Impac's wholesale operations (loan volume, employees, etc.), please let us know.