Webster to Sell $250M in Mortgage Loans

Webster Financial Corp., Waterbury, Conn., has announced that it is undertaking a balance sheet restructuring that will include the sale of $250 million of residential mortgage loans.The proceeds of the sale will be used to pay down $250 million in short-term borrowings. Webster said it expects to take a pretax loss of $7.0 million on the sale, which will be recognized in the fourth quarter. This sale is in addition to the sale of its $1.9 billion held-for-sale portfolio of mortgage-backed securities, which was announced in its third-quarter earnings report. At that time, the company said it expected to have a pretax loss on the sale of $6.0 billion in the fourth quarter. The actual loss was $2.4 billion, the company reported. Webster also announced that it is securitizing $1 billion of residential mortgage loans into the held-to-maturity securities portfolio, primarily for collateral purposes. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.websteronline.com.