Ginnie Mae Hires Bank of America to Service TBW Portfolio

The Government National Mortgage Association has hired Bank of America to service the roughly $25 billion in FHA receivables it seized from Taylor, Bean & Whitaker last week, according to industry sources. One investment banking official also noted that TBW is a major servicer of Freddie Mac-guaranteed loans and that the GSE may soon make a decision regarding its rights. "They haven't serviced for Fannie in years," said the banker. At the end of March TBW, a non-bank, ranked 13th nationwide among residential servicers with $78.2 billion in receivables, according to the Quarterly Data Report. At press time officials at BoA, GNMA, Freddie Mac and TBW were not commenting or had not returned telephone calls about the matter. Last week the Federal Housing Administration suspended the Ocala, Fla.-based TBW as a lender which then caused it to pull the plug on its wholesale division. Shortly before that, TBW's $300 million financial rescue of its chief warehouse provider, Colonial Bancshares, fell apart after the Alabama bank reported a huge loss. Colonial is now the subject of a federal probe of its warehouse lending operations.