| Wells Fargo announced Wednesday that it will | | | | Fargo's mortgage servicing portfolio by 13%. Wells will |
| purchase Washington Mutual's government mortgage | | | | become the nation's largest servicer, surpassing |
| servicing portfolio. Wells Fargo will also purchase a | | | | Countrywide Financial Corp."We expect this |
| portion of WaMu's conforming, fixed-rate portfolio.The | | | | transaction to exceed our required internal rate of |
| total servicing portfolio after the transaction is | | | | return even before factoring in any cross-sell to these |
| complete will be $692 million, and affect 4 million | | | | new customers," said Howard Atkins, Wells Fargo's |
| customers with outstanding principal balances.Wells will | | | | chief financial officer.Washington Mutual recently laid |
| additionally acquire WaMu's Milwaukee servicing | | | | off 900 mortgage employees across the country last |
| operation. No terms of the deal were | | | | week. Three-hundred and fifty of these employees |
| disclosed.Washington Mutual has expressed an | | | | were mortgage property appraisers. The company |
| interest to focus on more profitable products and | | | | has been working towards slimming down operations |
| businesses, and not on the slowing mortgage industry. | | | | and outsourcing to other countriesMartin Lukac |
| Mortgage servicing is the business of collecting | | | | represents and a finance web-company specializing in |
| mortgage payments from borrowers while providing | | | | real estate and mortgage rates. We specialize in daily |
| customer service.Wells Fargo has been expanding its | | | | updates, mortgage news, rate predictions, mortgage |
| mortgage servicing portfolio in the past ten years. It | | | | rates and more. Find low home loan mortgage interest |
| has seen a compound annual growth rate of 25% | | | | rates from hundreds of mortgage companies! |
| since 1995. The WaMu acquisition will increase Wells | | | | |