CitiMortgage Wholesale Cuts AE's, Brokers

jonboy48118 at 01:31 2008-10-08 said:

On September 9, I shared our new Originations structure under a National Sales and Operations model with two channels – Institutional and Consumer -- to support a balanced business model focused on profitable scale and strategic relationships. I reiterate that I expect to come out on the other side of this challenging market as the envy of the industry and today share some key steps toward that goal.

We are redefining our Wholesale business model through the application of decision analytics and have identified approximately 1000 (versus the 9500 we have today) strategic business partners. The basis of this new model is dependent on doing business with the right brokers via a low-cost, high-touch approach and will therefore leverage telesales and a smaller account executive footprint. Wholesale business will be fulfilled in St. Louis and Dallas, and we are adjusting support for this overall model appropriately.

Our Retail model will focus on our most strategic relationships, including Citibank, Smith Barney, PFS, Corporate Relocation and marketing our mortgage products to Citi employees. As a result, we will exit our less strategic originations sources in Self Source and Affinity. Retail volume will be fulfilled in St. Louis, Dallas and Southfield, where we’ll leverage current market opportunities.

To support these strategies and the overall National Sales and Operations model, we will be consolidating the channel support into a single national support model, eliminating silos and leveraging best practices and talent in these areas. Jeff Walker and Cindy Manser will be sharing detail on this via their organization structures shortly.

Finally, as I have shared a number of times, two key areas of focus for our business are reducing portfolio assets and managing net credit losses. In support of these, we will leverage the new originations platform to fulfill two recently launched programs: • Portfolio Express where we will work to refinance loans in our portfolio to saleable loans • Bend the Curve where we’ll more broadly target current borrowers who have been identified as “at risk” and develop proactive solutions to help them remain in their homes.

Additionally, we will also be adding extreme focus on the FHA refinance opportunity. Ann Arbor and Denver will be our primary fulfillment centers for these initiatives. As we work toward effectively integrating these programs, we have communicated today with our employees in Denver that ultimately the work will fully transition into our larger operations sites. With these changes, there are many colleagues and friends who are impacted. I can assure you we will work together to provide comprehensive support throughout this process, including outplacement services and separation pay benefits, where applicable. And, I know I can count on each of you to show the professionalism and compassion I have experienced since joining this organization in July.

There continues to be new news everyday regarding the environment and as we continue to monitor the continued market turbulence, we will manage accordingly. I feel confident our business model is where we need to be to support the industry and our customers’ needs and are in step with our key operating guidelines shared last month. Permalink