Taylor Capital to Enter Mortgage Servicing Through Ohio Deal

Taylor Capital Group in Chicago plans to enter the mortgage-servicing business through the purchase of servicing rights and facilities from Liberty Savings Bank of Wilmington, Ohio.

The $5.8-billion-asset Taylor said Tuesday that it has bought the servicing rights to approximately 4,600 loans, along with office space and other infrastructure, from Liberty. It also expects to take on all 50 of Liberty's loan-servicing employees in Wilmington. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The Wilmington facility will become part of Cole Taylor Mortgage, which currently relies on a third-party mortgage servicer.

Bringing servicing in-house "will be an important step in the continued growth and expansion of Cole Taylor Mortgage," Mark Hoppe, the chief executive of Taylor Capital, said in a news release. "It will provide Cole Taylor Mortgage with the ability to directly manage the operations and related costs associated with mortgage servicing, and most importantly, customer care related to its growing residential mortgage servicing portfolio."

Taylor Capital has been expanding its niche lending operations in the past year. Last month it announced plans to establish a group that finances employee stock ownership plans, and in July 2012 it launched an equipment-finance group.

The Wilmington servicing facility is the $546 million-asset Liberty's only Ohio office; it has 12 other locations in Colorado and Florida. In February, Liberty sold $12 million worth of deposits at a Colorado branch to Solera National Bankcorp. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency terminated an enforcement action against the bank last month.

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