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Mann Mortgage, a Montana-based lender that did business nationwide, is being acquired by Synergy One Lending — the San Diego-based lender’s second big move this year.
Synergy One onboarded about a dozen Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corporation branches that did not want to acquired by New American Funding in February, Synergy One Lending CEO Steve Majerus told Inman.
Majerus said Monday that Synergy One expects to bring on 140 to 150 Mann Mortgage employees, most of them loan originators, when the deal is wrapped up “in a day or two.”
While Synergy One already has a presence in the Pacific Northwest, acquiring Mann Mortgage will add market share, Majerus said. The companies were a good fit because both employ the distributed retail model and use similar technology.
Including the Mann Mortgage acquisition, Synergy One has grown by 65 to 70 percent this year, Majerus said — and is still on the hunt for deals.
“We believe that companies are going to continue to be challenged by a low origination environment, and we continue to look for opportunities where we can add scale to our infrasctructure and deploy our technology at the point of sale,” Majerus said.
While records show some Mann Mortgage employees have already jumped ship to Synergy One, others will apparently be looking for work.
“Quite a few are coming with us,” Mann Mortgage CEO Jason Mann told the Daily Inter Lake, the local newspaper in the company’s hometown of Kalispell. “Unfortunately, when you do a merger, we’re not able to have everyone come with us.”
Mann Mortgage did not respond to Inman’s requests for comment.
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San Diego-based Synergy One is licensed in 49 states (everywhere but New York) and Washington, D.C., sponsoring 348 loan originators who work out of 57 branch locations, according to records maintained by the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS).
NMLS records show that some loan originators previously sponsored by Mann Mortgage made the move to Synergy One last week.
Mann Mortgage markets served
Source: Mann Mortgage website, Oct. 1 2024.
Based in northwest Montana not far from Glacier National Park, Mann Mortgage is licensed and operates branches in states throughout the West and Southeast — and has tangled with regulators in Idaho and Washington in recent years.
Mann told the Daily Inter Lake that the last two years have been challenging for the mortgage industry as a whole, with higher mortgage rates crimping both home sales and refinancings. He said “joining forces with a team that’s twice our size” will give the company a competitive advantage, with local offices continuing to operate as Mann Mortgage powered by Synergy One Lending.
Settlements with Idaho, Washington regulators
While the post-pandemic era of high mortgage rates and home prices has proven challenging for many mortgage lenders, Mann Mortgage closed a branch in Idaho and fired all of its workers after it attracted the eye of regulators more than a decade ago.
In 2017, Mann Mortgage agreed to pay $150,000 to Idaho regulators after examinations conducted in 2012, 2015 and 2016 allegedly uncovered instances in which the company’s loan documentation, business management, advertising and mortgage originator licensing failed to comply with state and federal laws.
In 2016, examiners with the Idaho Department of Finance said they uncovered 20 separate loan transactions in which a branch manager sent emails to an appraiser telling him what the value of the property needed to be in order for the loan to be approved.
Examiners also alleged that several employees at the same branch received gift cards from a home insurance provider that they referred loan applicants to, and uncovered evidence that some employees performed “licensable mortgage activities” before they’d obtained the required licenses.
According to the consent order, Mann Mortgage had previously been informed about the branch manager accused of “unlawfully communicating with an appraiser about the appraisal process.” Although the company discussed the matter with the branch manager it “did not implement procedures to prevent the same violation from occurring again,” investigators claimed.
After the 2016 examination uncovered 258 problematic email communications between the branch manager and the appraiser, Mann Mortgage shut down the branch and fired all of its employees — including the manager.
Idaho regulators said Mann Mortgage had “started the process of improving its internal compliances” before the 2016 examination, after which “it accelerated its efforts” to implement procedures ensuring it was in compliance, including:
- Adopting an appraisal independence policy
- Hiring a director of risk management, and increasing the compliance department from seven employees to 16
- Hiring an internal auditor to conduct on-site branch audits, testing and setting controls
Three years after entering into the consent order with Idaho regulators, Mann Mortgage paid $80,986 to authorities in Washington state to settle alleged compliance issues at its Bellevue branch.
Investigators with the Washington Department of Financial Institutions claimed that Mann Mortgage failed to protect clients’ personally identifiable information (PPI) at the branch, which was stored in software applications, including Salesforce and Quip, that the main office didn’t have access to. Investigators said they also identified instances in which the employees originated loans from unlicensed locations, failed to provide complete and accurate rate lock agreements, or did not provide borrowers with accurate closing disclosures.
Mann Mortgage neither admitted nor denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to conduct on-site internal audits of all of its Washington branches and pay $40,986 to cover the cost of the investigation prompted by the 2016 and 2019 examinations.
The company also agreed to pay $40,000 to regulators “for purposes of financial literacy and education,” with the consent order stipulating that the payment would not be advertised or publicized.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with perspective from Synergy One Lending CEO Steve Majerus
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