First Magnus Financial Corp, a national mortgage lender that is suspending operations, says it has laid off 99 per cent of its nearly 6,000 employees nationwide and closed all of its more than 300 offices. | |
| According to a notice filed with the state yesterday, the Tucson-based company that originated home loans and then sold bundled loans into the secondary loan market expects to retain only about 60 of its employees. |
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| First Magnus officials said a bankruptcy filing was possible. On Thursday, First Magnus announced that it had stopped originating new loans and was suspending operations. |
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| Company officials said the lender was caught in the credit liquidity crunch now causing a meltdown in the mortgage industry, even though First Mangus was not engaged in selling "sub-prime" mortgages that sparked the crisis in recent months. |
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| First Magnus, which calls itself one of the largest privately held mortgage banking operations in the country, funded more than $30 billion in loans in 2006. |
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| The company's retail outlets include Great Southwest Mortgage and Charter Funding, recently renamed First Magnus Home Loans. Recent Developments First Magnus Financial Corp, the second-largest privately held US mortgage company, will stop funding new loans Houston-based subprime lender Aegis Mortgage Corp and Atlanta-based HomeBanc Corp file for bankruptcy National City Corp, Ohio's largest bank, will merge two home-loan units, eliminating an unspecified number of jobs Countrywide, the biggest US mortgage lender, goes in for $11.5 billion emergency loan |
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