BoA to Acquire MBNA

Bank of America Corp., Charlotte, N.C., has agreed to acquire MBNA Corp., Wilmington, Del., in a deal valued at $35 billion.In May, MBNA acquired Nexstar Financial Corp., St. Charles, Mo., a private-label originator of mortgages. As part of that deal, MBNA bought all of Nexstar's assets, including "Powered by Nexstar," the company's proprietary home loan origination and processing platform. The Nexstar management team and all Nexstar's employees joined MBNA, and plans were for Nexstar to continue to operate under its own name. For the first quarter of this year, Bank of America was the nation's fifth-largest mortgage originator, with volume of $32.5 billion, according to the Quarterly Data Report, a MortgageWire affiliate. The most recent edition of the Mortgage Industry Directory lists Nexstar Mortgage with volume of $2.5 billion for 2003, ranking it 122nd among the nation's originators. As of the morning of June 30, BoA had no announcement regarding its plans for Nexstar.