The mortgage origination and servicing businesses complement the other lines that operate under the MetLife Inc. banner. That is why the company will keep MetLife Home Loans although it plans to sell the unit’s depository parent MetLife Bank NA.
MetLife Home Loans started in 2008 as the parent company acquired the reverse mortgage business from EverBank LLC; soon afterwards, it also bought the forward mortgage originations business of First Horizon Home Loans.
Over the past three years MetLife Home Loans has grown rapidly, recently expanding into warehouse and correspondent lending.
A statement from a company spokesman said, “Residential mortgages, both traditional mortgages and reverse mortgages, provide opportunities for shopping points where other MetLife products and services might be of interest and helpful to a consumer, at both the phases of accumulation (planning for retirement and protecting one’s earnings capacity during working years) and spending one’s savings in retirement, as well as estate planning.”
Furthermore, the spokesman said MetLife remains committed to the reverse mortgage sector, even as a pair of the larger competitors in that space, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, are abandoning that business.
“The reverse mortgage business compromises a small portion of MetLife Home Loans’ total origination business, but it provides opportunities for MetLife associates to discuss holistic financial planning opportunities with consumers. To date, the business has been both profitable, and a complement to MetLife’s other businesses,” the company spokesman said.
When asked how MetLife plans to fund its mortgage production going forward after the sale of MetLife Bank, the spokesman said, “We just announced our intention to sell, and it’s too early to comment.”
A press release from the company said it feels a bank holding company structure is no longer appropriate given its focus on the insurance and employee benefits businesses.
The bank was just 2% of MetLife’s first-quarter operating earnings.
