Career moves

Robert L. Levy has been named chief financial officer of American Mortgage Acceptance Co., a New York-based real estate investment trust, and of New York-based CharterMac, AMAC's external adviser.Mr. Levy, who has been CharterMac's director of capital markets since 2001, will replace Alan P. Hirmes, who will remain chief operating officer of CharterMac and a member of AMAC's board, the companies said. Mr. Levy was previously a vice president in the real estate equity research and investment banking departments of Robertson Stephens, San Francisco. CharterMac can be found online at http://www.chartermac.com, and AMAC can be found at http://www.americanmortgageco.com.

ComplianceEase, San Francisco, has promoted its executive vice president, David Girling, to the position of president and chief executive officer.The compliance and risk management automation company's co-founder and former CEO, John Vong, will remain as chairman of the board, while another co-founder, Anita Kwan, will become chief operating officer and retain responsibility for finance, business operations, and administration. In his new position, Mr. Girling will be charged with expanding the company's already extensive roster of partnerships with loan origination systems and loan document providers as well as with Wall Street firms and other mortgage market participants. He brings over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, including leadership positions with Shearson Lehman Mortgage, GE Capital Mortgage Corp., and PricewaterhouseCoopers. ComplianceEase can be found on the Web at http://www.complianceease.com.

HouseRaising Inc., a Charlotte, N.C.-based managed service provider to the custom homebuilding industry, has reported the death of its president and founder, Robert V. McLemore.Mr. McLemore died Nov. 23 at the age of 63, the company said. The cause of death was not disclosed. The company said Mr. McLemore founded HouseRaising in 1999 and invented a patent-pending custom homebuilding process that he developed into System C, a proprietary software system. Greg Wessling, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, said Mr. McLemore was "a remarkable human being, who built a strong company and a strong management team." HouseRaising can be found online at http://www.houseraising.com.

Following a national search, Doris W. Koo has been named president and chief executive officer of Enterprise Community Partners, a provider of development capital and expertise for affordable housing based in Columbia, Md.Ms. Koo, who is now an executive vice president, will succeed Bart Harvey as president and CEO on Jan. 1, at which time Mr. Harvey will assume the full-time role of chairman of the board of Enterprise Community Partners, Enterprise Community Investment, and Enterprise Community Loan Fund. The company said Ms. Koo has 30 years' experience in affordable housing and community development. Before joining Enterprise in 2001, she was deputy executive director of the Seattle Housing Authority. The company can be found online at http://www.enterprisecommunity.org.

Kenneth C. Foster has been named executive vice president of structured transactions and business development at Triad Guaranty Inc., Winston-Salem, N.C.Mr. Foster was most recently senior vice president of product and business development and general manager of structured transactions at Triad. He previously held two other SVP posts at Triad, and was a principal of Applied Mortgage Solutions from 1994 to 2001, Triad said. The company can be found online at http://www.triadguaranty.com.

Republic Property Trust, Washington, has announced that Steven A. Grigg has terminated his employment as president and chief development officer, but will continue as vice chairman of the real estate investment trust.Republic reported that Mr. Grigg "alleges that his employment has been terminated for 'good reason' and has asserted certain claims under his employment agreement. The company believes these assertions are without merit. Prior to Mr. Grigg's termination of employment, the company had been pursuing discussions with Mr. Grigg regarding a negotiated termination of his employment and his employment agreement at the direction of the company's board of directors." Mark R. Keller, Republic's chief executive officer, has temporarily assumed Mr. Grigg's responsibilities, the company said.

Chris McCullough has been named managing director of specialty lending at Countrywide, America's Wholesale Lender, a Plano, Texas-based division of Countrywide Home Loans Inc.Mr. McCullough will oversee the day-to-day operations of Countrywide's wholesale nonprime lending initiatives. Before joining Countrywide, he served as executive vice president of production for WMC Direct within General Electric Consumer Finance, spearheading the company's growth in the nonprime mortgage market, Countrywide said. The Countrywide wholesale unit can be found online at http://www.cwbc.com.

Home Loan Center, Irvine, Calif., the mortgage arm of LendingTree LLC, has dismissed its head of production, and another executive, MortgageWire has learned.A source familiar with the situation confirmed that production chief Sean Wilson has left the firm along with Peter McDonald, who was described by the source as being "just shy of executive level." A spokeswoman for LendingTree declined to comment on the situation. LendingTree, an online exchange that boasts it can get the best loan rate for consumers, bought Home Loan Center, a mortgage banker, in September 2004. Last month, a class action lawsuit was filed against both LendingTree and HLC alleging that there is no competition at LendingTree, and that the company uses the website to generate leads for HLC. LendingTree argues that the suit is without merit and has vowed to fight it vigorously. The two companies are owned by the publicly traded IAC/Interactive, New York, whose chief executive officer is media titan Barry Diller.

Balboa Insurance Group, a provider of lender-placed hazard insurance, has hired three industry veterans to help support and expand its collateral protection and insurance businesses.Balboa named Mark DeLoach executive vice president for financial institution products. Prior to joining Balboa, Mr. DeLoach spent 12 years at JP Morgan Chase & Co. in positions including head of product management and head of product development for Chase Insurance Group. He previously spent 16 years with Assurant. Gary Flowers, who brings 15 years of experience at ACS, has been named executive vice president for sales and marketing. And David Lipps, previously a senior vice president at Aegon Direct Marketing Services, has been named senior vice president for sales and product development. In addition to lender-placed hazard and auto insurance, Balboa offers collateral protection, life, credit & debt, warranty, and specialty insurance products to financial institutions. The company can be found online at http://www.balboainsurance.com.

Four industry leaders, including a former federal housing commissioner and a Freddie Mac executive, have been named to the advisory board of Pembrook Capital Management, a New York-based real estate investment management company recently founded by Stuart J. Boesky.The newly appointed board members are: Nicolas P. Retsinas, a former federal housing commissioner and former director of the Office of Thrift Supervision who is now director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies; Adrian B. Corbiere, a senior vice president of Freddie Mac; Lewis A. "Lee" Sachs, a partner of Mariner Investment Group; and Denise L. Kiley, a former managing trustee and former chief credit officer of CharterMac, where Mr. Boesky was formerly chief executive officer. Pembrook provides capital to developers and owners of commercial real estate through the acquisition or origination of real estate debt and preferred equity. It can be found online at http://www.pembrookgroup.com.

Fannie Mae has agreed to pay its former chief executive officer and chairman Franklin Raines $2.6 million as part of a settlement tied to his early "retirement" in December 2004.In September of last year Mr. Raines -- a key figure in the government-sponsored enterprise's $11 billion accounting scandal -- initiated arbitration proceedings against the company, citing a clause in his employment contract that he provide Fannie with six months notice prior to retiring. Officially, Mr. Raines retired in December 2004, but essentially Fannie's board forced him out of the company as regulators began to question its accounting practices. Mr. Raines has other pending contract-related claims against the company. Fannie's regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, has said publicly that it may sue to recover past bonus money paid to certain current and former executives because it believes accounting rules were violated to meet earnings-per-share bonus targets. A few months ago the Justice Department confirmed that it would not bring criminal charges against the company relating to its accounting scandal.

Bruce Karatz has retired as chairman of the board, director, and chief executive officer of KB Home following an independent investigation into the company's stock-option granting practices, which concluded that the company used incorrect measurement dates for stock option grants from 1998 to 2005The board has terminated the employment of Gary A. Ray, the company's head of human resources, and Richard B. Hirst has resigned as executive vice president and chief legal officer, effective immediately, the Los Angeles-based company reported. Mr. Karatz, who was with KB Home for 34 years, has agreed to pay the company the difference between the initial strike price and the closing price on the new measurement date for options he has exercised that were incorrectly priced. He has also agreed that each new strike price will be the closing price on the new measurement date. This is expected to involve an aggregate voluntary value transfer from Mr. Karatz to the company of approximately $13 million, KB Home said. The homebuilder said it expects that the incremental noncash compensation expense arising from the errors is not likely to exceed $50 million, spread over the vesting periods of the options in question.

Lehman Brothers has hired First Franklin Financial Corp. executive Steve Skolnik to run its BNC Mortgage affiliate, MortgageWire has learned.A spokesman for Lehman Brothers confirmed the news, which was first reported by National Mortgage News. The spokesman also said BNC's current chief executive officer, Kelly Monahan, will remain with the company but "will have other duties" at Lehman. A spokesman for National City Corp., Cleveland, which owns First Franklin, confirmed that Mr. Skolnik has left the subprime lender. The San Jose, Calif.-based First Franklin is being sold to Merrill Lynch & Co. BNC is headquartered in Irvine, Calif.

The White House has denied that there will be a change at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and maintains that rumors that Secretary Alfonso Jackson will be removed are "absolutely baseless."White House Press Secretary Tony Snow told reporters that "Alphonso has been reassured that he is going to remain the HUD secretary." Mortgage Wire reported earlier that Secretary Jackson would resign in the next few weeks. Despite the White House denial, industry sources indicate that Secretary Jackson plans to leave HUD by Christmas and that HUD Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi is expected to become the acting secretary. In related developments, HUD General Counsel Keith Gottfried left the department Nov. 3 and Ginnie Mae President Robert Couch is filling in as HUD's chief legal officer.

Robert Hulnick has been promoted to senior vice president and general manager of field services for the appraisal and Realtor-based valuation operations of Fiserv Lending Solutions.Mr. Hulnick, who was most recently senior vice president of strategic projects, will re-engineer the Realtor valuations and appraisal product lines, the company said. He was previously a vice president/director of valuation at GMAC HomeConnects. Mr. Hulnick held various executive posts at GE Mortgage and Fairbanks Capital, where he created one of the mortgage industry's premier Broker Price Opinion services, Fiserv said. The company can be found online at http://www.fiservls.com.

Andrew McCormick, a former Fannie Mae executive, has been named to the newly created post of executive vice president and chief investment officer of Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc., Newport Beach, Calif.Mr. McCormick was previously senior vice president of portfolio transactions at Fannie Mae, Impac said. Before his tenure at Fannie Mae, he was a vice president of fixed-income securities at Morgan Stanley. Impac, a mortgage real estate investment trust, can be found online at http://www.impaccompanies.com.

Department of Housing and Urban Development general counsel Keith Gottfried has resigned, and he left the department Nov. 3 after serving one year as HUD's chief legal officer.It is a "loss" for lenders and real estate settlement providers who supported his efforts to provide guidance on Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act issues, according to RESPA attorney Phillip Schulman. "The fact that he won't be there to carry out that mission is a loss for participants," he said. Mr. Schulman is a partner with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP in Washington. Mr. Gottfried's departure is also expected to delay HUD's RESPA reform effort to revise and improve the good-faith estimate that lenders disclose to mortgage applicants. In a letter to his HUD colleagues, Mr. Gottfried said he is "proud" to have laid the "framework for enhancing regulatory transparency and compliance assistance at HUD." Prior to joining HUD, Mr. Gottfried was general counsel at Borland Software, Scotts Valley, Calif. In the 1990s, he was an attorney with Skadden Arps in New York.

Gary L. Kermott, president of First American Title Insurance Co., has been named vice chairman of the company and will help oversee the business until a new president is appointed, according to The First American Corp., Santa Ana, Calif.Mr. Kermott has held the position of president of the title insurance company since 1999, and he will retain his post as executive vice president of First American, the parent company. As vice chairman, he will be involved in various strategic activities, including sales efforts aimed at major agents and customers and the strengthening of First American's regulatory relationships, the company said. First American can be found online at http://www.firstam.com.

Rahul Merchant, the former head of global business technology at Merrill Lynch & Co., has been named executive vice president and chief information officer of Fannie Mae.Fannie Mae said Mr. Merchant, as CIO, will manage the more than one-third of the company's work force that fall within that function. At Merrill Lynch, he had direct oversight of more than 6,000 employees in that company's Global Markets & Investment Banking unit. He was previously an executive vice president at Dresdner, Kleinwort and Benson, a global investment bank. Fannie Mae can be found online at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Jeffrey Olson has been named president of Equity One Inc., a real estate investment trust based in North Miami Beach, Fla., and Jeffrey Stauffer has been named the company's chief operating officer.The shopping center REIT said the appointments followed the resignation of Doron Valero as president and COO. He will remain with Equity One through Dec. 31. Mr. Olson joined Equity One in September after four years as president of the Eastern and Western shopping center regions of Kimco Realty Corp. As previously announced, he will take over as Equity One's chief executive officer on or before April 1, 2007. Mr. Stauffer was most recently COO of Pan Pacific Retail Properties Inc., a San Diego-based shopping center REIT. Equity One can be found online at http://www.equityone.net.