Summit lays off dozens in wake of CrossCountry deal

Shortly after announcing a merger agreement with retail lender CrossCountry Mortgage, Summit Funding said it will permanently eliminate 163 positions across the company. 

The Sacramento, California-based home lender informed state officials in a mandatory Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing dated March 19, just one day after the merger was officially announced. The final date of employment for affected staff will be May 17. 

The terminations stretch across the organization, including management and operations staff on underwriting, post-closing, servicing and marketing teams. Senior executives among the list of layoffs include both chief information and chief operating officers and Summit's general counsel. 

Despite the pending layoffs, Summit said its Sacramento headquarters would remain open.    

"The reason for this permanent layoff is the pending sale of the business," Summit President and CEO Todd Scrima specified in the WARN notice. 

CrossCountry did not respond to a request for further comment prior to article publication, but in his letter to state officials, Scrima also suggested some employees might have the opportunity to move into comparable roles post merger. 

"Any such employment would be with the purchasing entity and not Summit Funding, Inc.," he wrote. 

In 2024, privately-held Summit produced just under 5,900 loans, totaling approximately $2 billion, according to Iemergent analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. The total makes it one of the country's top 35 lenders, CrossCountry noted at the time of the acquisition announcement. Of Summit's total origination volume, almost 90% consisted of purchase mortgages, with strength in the Western U.S.

Summit currently operates 43 branch offices in 16 states, according to data provided by the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System.

Layoff rounds following recent mergers

The wave of mergers and acquisitions seen since originations began to slow this decade has frequently been accompanied with rounds of consolidation-related layoffs. 

Even when due entirely to business factors, the subsequent layoffs at times have resulted in hurt feelings and bitterness over the manner in which executives of acquired businesses handled the terminations, as in the case involving Sierra Pacific and Union Home Mortgage last year. 

Following the closure of its two large-scale 2025 acquisitions of Redfin and Mr. Cooper last October, Rocket similarly began downsizing in order to streamline teams at the newly combined company, it said at the time. 

The company followed up at the end of 2025, with the reduction of another 102 former Mr. Cooper employees in California.

In another example, Newrez embarked on multiple rounds of layoffs shortly after its acquisition of Computershare Mortgage Services in 2024.