Hedge Funds Close on IndyMac Purchase

An investor group that includes hedge fund mavens J. Christopher Flowers and John Paulson has closed on its purchase of IndyMac Bank FSB, a $160 billion residential servicer that became a ward of the government last summer. At press time no information was available concerning billions of dollars of loan buy-back requests that Fannie Mae had with IndyMac. A spokesman for One West Bank Group had no information on the matter and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which sold the Pasadena-based depository, could not be reached for comment. Among the assets that OWBC bought is Financial Freedom, a large player in the reverse mortgage market. The investor group has pumped $1.55 billion of cash into the thrift which will be called One West Bank FSB. In a statement the new owners said it would maintain IndyMac's "national mortgage banking" business and continue to modify troubled loans under an FDIC program started last summer.