People

Mark Korell, who once headed the nation's largest mortgage banking firm, has joined JPMorgan Chase and will assist the bank in regard to what he calls "cross strategies" tied to its correspondent lending group.Mr. Korell confirmed that he's joining JPM, but offered no other details on what exactly he'll be doing for the company. JPM is the parent of Chase, both the nation's third largest residential funder and servicer.

Finacorp Securities, Irvine, Calif., has expanded its Minneapolis office and named three vice presidents to its mortgage team in an effort to bolster fixed income securities coverage for its institutional clients: Mike Weir, Tom Sullivan and Mike Lingvall. Mr. Weir and Mr. Sullivan, now both VPs in sales and trading at Finacorp, had played roles in founding North American Capital Markets. All three men at one point worked in the fixed income area at Dain Rauscher. Among their most recent positions: Mr. Weir worked in Oak Ridge Financial's investment banking department, Mr. Sullivan worked with Cronin & Co. as a VP and MBS trader, and Mr. Lingvall led fixed-income private placement trading at Morgan Joseph Inc. with a focus on distressed and crossover credits.

William P. Foley II will give up his post as chairman of Lender Processing Services Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., effective on March 15. He will retain his other positions as chairman of both Fidelity National Financial and Fidelity National Information Systems; FIS and LPS were both spun out from FNF. FIS president and chief executive Lee A. Kennedy will become the non-executive chairman of LPS. Daniel D. (Ron) Lane and Cary H. Thompson will retire from LPS's board and Jeff Carbiener, who is LPS's president and CEO, John F. Farrell Jr. and Philip G. Heasley will join the board on March 15. Mr. Farrell was president of North American Mortgage Corp. between 1985 and 1997. Mr. Heasley is the president and CEO of ACI Worldwide. Inc. The LPS compensation committee approved a one-time separation payment totaling $6.8 million to Messrs. Foley, Thompson, and Lane.

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services has named Fran Sullivan to the newly created position of chief information officer within the company. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services provides regulatory intelligence, policy and process management, and oversight to help financial services organizations address their compliance needs. Mr. Sullivan will be responsible for the overall leadership of processes and practices supporting the flow of technology information across Wolters Kluwer Financial Services' different business lines. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services serves customers in the mortgage, banking, securities, insurance and indirect lending markets. Before he joined Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, Mr. Sullivan held several senior management positions related to product development, network services, systems integration and client integration at companies that included Fidelity Investments.

Broadpoint Capital, Inc., a New York broker-dealer subsidiary of Broadpoint Securities Group, Inc. said Chris Lau, Ryan King, Brian Horan, Joseph Lyons, and Mike Regan have joined Broadpoint DESCAP, its mortgage-/asset-backed security and rates division. Mr. Lau, a former managing director on RBS Greenwich Capital's commercial MBS desk, joins Broadpoint as a managing director of the CMBS group. Mr. King, previously associate director of ABS trading at Barclays, is joining Broadpoint's ABS trading group. Mr. Horan, previously a trader of adjustable-rate mortgage products at GMAC-RFC, joins Broadpoint as a director of MBS trading and marks Broadpoint's further expansion into a greater presence in the agency ARM market. Mr. Lyons, previously an executive director of the fixed income structured credit sales group at Morgan Stanley, joins the sales group of the division. Mr. Regan, former director at Bank of America, joins the sales group of the division. Mr. Regan started his career as a mortgage originator at Citimortgage and he managed a team of four covering hedge funds, money managers and insurance companies while at Bank of America.

Former Freddie Mac executive Pete Maselli has joined Lender Processing Services Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., as senior vice president of strategy and business development. In his new role Mr. Maselli will provide strategic counsel at key enterprise-level executive client meetings and represent LPS with the government-sponsored enterprises, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Mortgage Bankers Association and other governmental partners. He is based in Washington and prior to joining LPS, spent more than 15 years at Freddie Mac, where he led numerous strategic initiatives, including the Loan Prospector automated underwriting business. He also recently held key marketing and strategic planning positions at Overture Technologies and LandAmerica Financial Group.

R. Chad Dreier, chief executive of The Ryland Group Inc., Calabasas, Calif., will retire from that position on May 29, 2009. He will continue in his role as chairman at the homebuilder and mortgage finance company. Larry Nicholson will be promoted to the position of chief executive and will retain the title of president. Mr. Dreier joined Ryland in November 1993 as president and chief executive, becoming chairman in December 1994. With more than 25 years of experience in the homebuilding industry, Mr. Nicholson joined Ryland in 1996 as a vice president of operations and subsequently ran the Greenville, S.C. and Orlando divisions before his promotion to Southeast region president in 2004. He was promoted to chief operating officer in June 2007 and president in September 2008.

Mortgage Contracting Services, a provider of property preservation and inspection services based in Tampa, Fla., has named Michele Struckman as assistant vice president of Tampa operations and Tracy Hager vice president of the company's Dallas operations Ms. Struckman and Ms. Hager join MCS with more than three decades of combined experience in the financial services industry. As assistant vice president of operations, Ms. Struckman is responsible for creating and implementing property preservation strategies, as well as leading operations for one of the company's largest servicing clients. Ms. Struckman was most recently with Countrywide Home Loans, where during her tenure, she worked as a foreclosure manager. In her position as vice president, Ms. Hager leads operations for the company's Dallas office, providing leadership through the day-to-day account team. Prior to joining MCS, Ms. Hager worked as vice president at First American Field Services.

Mission Capital Advisors, LLC, a commercial, residential and consumer loan sale advisor with offices in New York, Florida and Texas, has hired Jason Cohen as a managing director in the firm's New York office. In his new role, Mr. Cohen will originate loan sales, trade loans and create loan sale financing platforms. For the past five years he was a managing director with the Ackman Ziff Real Estate Group, where his volume of deals completed exceeded $3 billion and he originated and placed senior debt, mezzanine debt, preferred equity, and equity for all types of real estate. "Jason joins us at a time when there is a significant amount of commercial and residential loan portfolios on the market, with an expected increase throughout 2009 and beyond," said David Tobin, principal at Mission Capital Advisors.

Trust Title Co., Maitland, Fla., has appointed Chaz Seale as vice chairman, formalizing the role he has held with the firm for the past several months. Mr. Seale has been an outside advisor to Trust Title Co.'s subsidiary TT Lender Solutions, a national construction loan management service provider, and played a role in its transition to loss mitigation and portfolio restructuring. Prior to joining Trust Title, Mr. Seale was senior vice president, mortgage project officer and director of nationwide construction-to-permanent and strategic alliances at Wachovia Mortgage FSB.