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Metrocities Mortgage LLC, a mortgage lender based in Sherman Oaks, Calif., has announced that its founder and chief executive officer, Paul Wylie, will step down.Dick Loeffler, chief operating officer of Prospect Mortgage Co., will serve as interim CEO upon Mr. Wylie's departure, and executives Lynette Hale-Lee, Virginia Martinez, Anna Ruotolo, and Harry Tomlinson will collectively manage the sales organization, Metrocities said. Mr. Wylie founded Metrocities in 1989. The company said he was instrumental in arranging the strategic investment in Metrocities by Sterling Partners, a private equity fund based in Chicago and Baltimore, which recapitalized the company and gave a majority interest to Prospect Mortgage, a portfolio company of Sterling. Metrocities can be found online at http://www.metrocities.com.

Renan Levy has been named president and chief operating officer of Intellidyn Corp., a Boston-based provider of direct response marketing and multichannel database marketing systems.Intellidyn said Mr. Levy worked most recently with n2N Commerce developing advanced electronic commerce systems for large e-retailers including The Limited. He was previously a partner at Halo Group International, and COO and chief executive officer of KaBloom. Intellidyn CEO Peter Harvey touted Mr. Levy's "strong background in business analytics and intelligence practices, and vast experience within the retail, e-commerce, online services, and multichannel contact center industries." The company can be found on the Web at http://www.intellidyn.com.

National City Corp. has announced that Paul "Buck" Bibb will retire as chief executive officer of National City Mortgage Co. in the first quarter of 2008 and will be succeeded by Joe Cartellone, currently president of National City Mortgage.Mr. Bibb joined National City Mortgage as executive vice president and national production manager in 1997 and was named CEO in 2004. He began his mortgage banking career in 1973 with the Commonwealth Corp. in Tallahassee, Fla. Mr. Cartellone joined National City Mortgage in April of this year when he was named president and chief operating officer. He was previously senior vice president and national sales manager of National City Home Equity, a division of National City Corp. that has since merged into National City Mortgage. Mr. Cartellone has more than 26 years of experience in mortgage banking and consumer lending, and held various positions at Chase Manhattan Mortgage.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight has promoted its chief examiner, Christopher H. Dickerson, to head the agency's supervision division.Mr. Dickerson is a 10-year OFHEO veteran, and during that time Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's top executives were ousted due to accounting scandals and the two mortgage giants have rebuilt their accounting systems and internal controls. "Chris's in-depth knowledge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the people, problems, and progress -- will enhance OFHEO's efforts to ensure the future safety and soundness of these important institutions," OFHEO Director James Lockhart said. The new supervision director replaces Len Reid, who retired recently.

American Securitization Forum associate director Tom Deutsch, an attorney with a background in residential mortgage-backed securities, has been promoted to deputy executive director of the group.Prior to joining the forum, Mr. Deutsch served as a lawyer in the capital markets department of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he represented issuers and underwriters in various structured finance offerings, including RMBS deals. He also previously served as an associate at McKee Nelson LLP, where he focused on RMBS. The ASF can be found on the Web at http://www.americansecuritization.com.

Morgan Stanley co-president Zoe Cruz, who rose in the firm through the fixed-income business segment that includes mortgage-backed securities, is departing the firm as part of a leadership reorganization in the wake of subprime mortgage-related writedowns at the company.Ms. Cruz, 52, has been considered one of Wall Street's more notable women executives and a one-time rising star at the firm. Also in connection with the reorganization, Walid A. Chammah and James P. Gorman are becoming co-presidents, and Robert Scully is joining a newly created Office of the Chairman. In addition, Michael "Mitch" Petrick is to oversee the firm's trading business and serve as co-head of institutional securities sales and trading, alongside Jerker Johansson; and Neal Shear has been named chairman of the firm's commodities business.

John P. Barnes has been named group vice president for residential services of LandAmerica Financial Group, a provider of real estate transaction services based in Richmond, Va.Mr. Barnes is an 18-year veteran of the mortgage industry who served most recently as executive vice president of sales at Dexma Inc., a mortgage software provider whose mortgage origination technology subsidiary he previously managed, LandAmerica said. He has also held positions at various other companies, including director of mortgage technology services at Freddie Mac. LandAmerica Financial can be found on the Web at http://www.landam.com.

Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., Ocala, Fla., has hired Stuart L. Scott as its chief operating officer.Mr. Scott previously was the chief information officer for Microsoft and held several executive roles with General Electric Co. TBW is a wholesale mortgage lender.

MortgageWire has learned that veteran e-mortgage expert Tim Anderson has been hired as president and chief executive of Houston-based SigniaDocs.Mr. Anderson will be charged with developing a platform based on mortgage investor guidelines that go beyond Fannie Mae electronic quality control guidelines to actually warrant compliance, leveraging Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization SMART Docs. He said he welcomes the opportunity to prove the value of electronic mortgages as a fundamental cure for flaws in the mortgage creation process revealed in the ongoing mortgage meltdown, which brought a cascade of buybacks related to compliance. Signia boasts of having built its system "from the ground up as three-tier, very secure, completely browser-based, backed by a wealth of experience" through a management team of mortgage industry veterans. Mr. Anderson was most recently employed by Stewart. SigniaDocs can be found online at http://www.signiadocs.com.

Merrill Lynch has named John Thain, a former Goldman Sachs executive with roots in the mortgage-backed securities business, as its new chief executive officer.Mr. Thain, chief executive and member of the management committee of NYSE Euronext and former president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, is slated to take the post at Merrill starting Dec. 1. A number of news reports indicate that Mr. Thain was among those at Goldman who started an MBS business there in the 1980s and that he had been eyed for a leadership post at Citigroup, a Wall Street firm that -- like Merrill -- saw its top executive depart after a huge subprime-linked loss.