WaMu Cuts 100 Staffers, Including Subprime

Washington Mutual, Seattle, has cut 100 staffers in its Stockton, Calif., office, including 50 who worked for its subprime division, Long Beach Mortgage.The news was first reported by the Stockton Record. As of MortgageWire's deadline, WaMu officials had not returned telephone calls about the matter. One secondary-market official told MW that the thrift recently came to market with a $240 million package of delinquent mortgages. The status of the sale is not known. WaMu, through Long Beach, is the nation's ninth-largest subprime funder, according to the Quarterly Data Report. WaMu can be found on the Web at http://www.wamu.com.