Hibernia Sells Servicing Portfolio

Hibernia, a bank headquarted in New Orleans, is selling its $10 billion third party mortgage servicing portfolio to CitiMortgage, Stamford, Conn.Matrix Bancorp Trading Inc., Denver, is the sales advisor for Hibernia. "Fluctuating interest rates over the past two years have impacted the value of mortgage servicing rights and resulted in volatility in the mortgage servicing income stream for Hibernia and many other banks," said Paul Peters, mortgage banking president for Hibernia. "Based on our ongoing analysis of the mortgage servicing asset and our desire to limit earnings volatility in this area, we decided to exit the third-party mortgage servicing business. We will now direct most of our mortgage banking efforts toward retail residential origination and release the servicing rights to others in the industry." Hibernia will retain a $2 billion adjustable-rate mortgage portfolio and a $650 billion portfolio owned by Hibernia that is serviced by others.