Sallie Mae Buys Mortgage Banking Firm

Sallie Mae, the Reston, Va.-based provider of higher education finance, has acquired First Trust Financial, a mortgage banking company headquartered in Weymouth, Mass.The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sallie Mae, formally known as SLM Corp., said the acquisition is intended to supplement the in-house, fee-based mortgage origination operations performed by the company's SLM Financial Corp. subsidiary since 1999. First Trust, which has 18 employees, will continue its operations in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire as a wholly owned unit of SLM Financial. "First Trust Financial will help us to continue to meet our core customers' financial services needs after they have left school," said Sallie Mae senior vice president Joseph Corvaia. "This addition complements the activities currently performed by SLM Financial Corp. and expands our presence in New England." Sallie Mae, now private but formerly a government sponsored enterprise, can be found on the Web at http://www.salliemae.com.