Cenlar closing Missouri location acquired from Citi

Cenlar is closing its O'Fallon, Missouri office, calling it a difficult decision, a little over seven years after taking over the space from Citigroup.

The workforce reduction impacts 93 people. The WARN notification was received by Missouri officials on June 20 and has a layoff date of July 22.

The closure was first reported in the St. Louis Business Journal on June 23.

"While these situations are never easy, the closure of this location ensures we can fully focus our efforts on our other offices and position the company for continued long-term success," a company statement said. "Cenlar remains committed to growing our subservicing business and driving positive outcomes for our clients and their homeowners."

Furthermore, the company has confirmed it is entering the warehouse lending and conduit business.

In January 2017, Citi decided to deemphasize its mortgage segment, which had been headquartered in O'Fallon. It sold its Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage servicing rights to New Residential Investment, since rebranded as Rithm.

Cenlar then was hired to subservice Citi's remaining MSR portfolio and moved into the O'Fallon office.

Cenlar, which is primarily known as a mortgage subservicer, is chartered as a bank. Its headquarters are in Ewing, New Jersey. Besides its corporate headquarters and the Missouri location, Cenlar has two servicing sites in New Jersey and one other in Arizona, a November 2024 Fitch report said.

Cenlar serviced approximately 2.2 million mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $742.3 billion as of June 30, 2024, a 15% reduction by loan count from one-year prior, the Fitch report said.

"The current portfolio is further broken down as 1.51 million agency loans totaling $393.4 billion, approximately 599,500 loans serviced for others totaling $312.3 billion, approximately 104,000 nonagency [residential mortgage-backed security] loans totaling $36.2 billion, and 494 owned loans totaling $235.4 million," Fitch said.