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Lehman Brothers has hired First Franklin Financial Corp. executive Steve Skolnik to run its BNC Mortgage affiliate, MortgageWire has learned.A spokesman for Lehman Brothers confirmed the news, which was first reported by National Mortgage News. The spokesman also said BNC's current chief executive officer, Kelly Monahan, will remain with the company but "will have other duties" at Lehman. A spokesman for National City Corp., Cleveland, which owns First Franklin, confirmed that Mr. Skolnik has left the subprime lender. The San Jose, Calif.-based First Franklin is being sold to Merrill Lynch & Co. BNC is headquartered in Irvine, Calif.

The White House has denied that there will be a change at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and maintains that rumors that Secretary Alfonso Jackson will be removed are "absolutely baseless."White House Press Secretary Tony Snow told reporters that "Alphonso has been reassured that he is going to remain the HUD secretary." Mortgage Wire reported earlier that Secretary Jackson would resign in the next few weeks. Despite the White House denial, industry sources indicate that Secretary Jackson plans to leave HUD by Christmas and that HUD Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi is expected to become the acting secretary. In related developments, HUD General Counsel Keith Gottfried left the department Nov. 3 and Ginnie Mae President Robert Couch is filling in as HUD's chief legal officer.

Robert Hulnick has been promoted to senior vice president and general manager of field services for the appraisal and Realtor-based valuation operations of Fiserv Lending Solutions.Mr. Hulnick, who was most recently senior vice president of strategic projects, will re-engineer the Realtor valuations and appraisal product lines, the company said. He was previously a vice president/director of valuation at GMAC HomeConnects. Mr. Hulnick held various executive posts at GE Mortgage and Fairbanks Capital, where he created one of the mortgage industry's premier Broker Price Opinion services, Fiserv said. The company can be found online at http://www.fiservls.com.

Andrew McCormick, a former Fannie Mae executive, has been named to the newly created post of executive vice president and chief investment officer of Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc., Newport Beach, Calif.Mr. McCormick was previously senior vice president of portfolio transactions at Fannie Mae, Impac said. Before his tenure at Fannie Mae, he was a vice president of fixed-income securities at Morgan Stanley. Impac, a mortgage real estate investment trust, can be found online at http://www.impaccompanies.com.

Department of Housing and Urban Development general counsel Keith Gottfried has resigned, and he left the department Nov. 3 after serving one year as HUD's chief legal officer.It is a "loss" for lenders and real estate settlement providers who supported his efforts to provide guidance on Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act issues, according to RESPA attorney Phillip Schulman. "The fact that he won't be there to carry out that mission is a loss for participants," he said. Mr. Schulman is a partner with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP in Washington. Mr. Gottfried's departure is also expected to delay HUD's RESPA reform effort to revise and improve the good-faith estimate that lenders disclose to mortgage applicants. In a letter to his HUD colleagues, Mr. Gottfried said he is "proud" to have laid the "framework for enhancing regulatory transparency and compliance assistance at HUD." Prior to joining HUD, Mr. Gottfried was general counsel at Borland Software, Scotts Valley, Calif. In the 1990s, he was an attorney with Skadden Arps in New York.

Gary L. Kermott, president of First American Title Insurance Co., has been named vice chairman of the company and will help oversee the business until a new president is appointed, according to The First American Corp., Santa Ana, Calif.Mr. Kermott has held the position of president of the title insurance company since 1999, and he will retain his post as executive vice president of First American, the parent company. As vice chairman, he will be involved in various strategic activities, including sales efforts aimed at major agents and customers and the strengthening of First American's regulatory relationships, the company said. First American can be found online at http://www.firstam.com.

Rahul Merchant, the former head of global business technology at Merrill Lynch & Co., has been named executive vice president and chief information officer of Fannie Mae.Fannie Mae said Mr. Merchant, as CIO, will manage the more than one-third of the company's work force that fall within that function. At Merrill Lynch, he had direct oversight of more than 6,000 employees in that company's Global Markets & Investment Banking unit. He was previously an executive vice president at Dresdner, Kleinwort and Benson, a global investment bank. Fannie Mae can be found online at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Jeffrey Olson has been named president of Equity One Inc., a real estate investment trust based in North Miami Beach, Fla., and Jeffrey Stauffer has been named the company's chief operating officer.The shopping center REIT said the appointments followed the resignation of Doron Valero as president and COO. He will remain with Equity One through Dec. 31. Mr. Olson joined Equity One in September after four years as president of the Eastern and Western shopping center regions of Kimco Realty Corp. As previously announced, he will take over as Equity One's chief executive officer on or before April 1, 2007. Mr. Stauffer was most recently COO of Pan Pacific Retail Properties Inc., a San Diego-based shopping center REIT. Equity One can be found online at http://www.equityone.net.

Victor L. Pepe has been named executive vice president and chief information officer of EMC Mortgage Corp., a Lewisville, Texas-based company specializing in the acquisition, servicing, and disposition of residential mortgage loans.Mr. Pepe has held CIO and chief technology officer positions for the past nine years, most recently with Lehman Brothers, where he was CIO and executive vice president of Aurora Loan Services, a Lehman Brothers subsidiary. He was previously CIO and EVP of SIB Mortgage Corp. EMC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Bear Stearns Cos., can be found on the Web at http://www.emcmortgage.com.

Patricia "Trish" Kauker has been named vice president of WSFS Financial Corp.'s newly created reverse mortgage business unit.The Wilmington, Del.-based company said Ms. Kauker was most recently head of AIG Bank's reverse mortgage initiative. She was previously employed by Beneficial National Bank, Norwest Mortgage, and Financial Freedom. WSFS said it has been involved in the reverse mortgage business since the early 1990s. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.wsfsbank.com.