American Bank Mortgage Group - Wholesale - Agency, FHA/VA, Alt-A, H.E.

Update - 2008-04-17: After several emails and forum posts disputing certain facts in our original post, we contacted ABMG again and spoke with their Director of Mortgage Lending, Glenn Schwartz. He confirmed that "at peak" there were between 18-20 AE's split among three "teams." Monthly wholesale volume had been somewhat overstated, and was in fact more in the range of $40 million per month, with peak in the mid to upper 50's.

Original Posting - 2008-04-11: Tips began trickling in early February that this news would be coming. Now it's official.

Today we received word that American Bank Mortgage Group, a division of American Federal Savings Bank, suspended their wholesale operation "for the near term..." According to Tim Bassett, National Director of Business Development, that could be 4 to 6 months or longer. He sent us this notice, which he said would appear on their web site soon:

"To: All correspondent partners;

American Bank Mortgage Group has experienced a significant growth in its Retail channel over the past several months. Our technology platform combined with our exceptional origination and fulfillment teams have resulted in huge retail origination production.

With the success of the retail channel and the ever increasing challenges in wholesale, we are suspending wholesale for the near term to dedicate our resources to meet the increasing growth of our retail operations throughout the country.

ABMG will honor all wholesale loans in the current pipeline but will not accept new wholesale submissions after April 15th, 2008."

Bassett told us "We're not firing anybody..." - the 20 AE's (or "Business Development Managers", as ABMG calls them) will transition to the retail operation, as will all support staff. "We loved wholesale," he said. "This is a strategic decision."

Over the past six months, their monthly wholesale volume has fluctuated between $60 and $100 million dollars, Bassett told us. They're actively expanding their retail operations nationwide, and have numerous job openings advertised.

Contact us with your comments or any additional information. There is a topic for ABMG on the forum you can view here.