A second former Finance of America retail production group has found a new home, this time at Hallmark Home Mortgage.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana-based company added a group of 60 people covering the states of Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas. Marc Wadman will continue to direct this team as Hallmark's senior vice president/regional manager.
The additions bring Hallmark up to 250 employees, noted Deborah Sturges, its CEO and founder. The productivity from this new group is likely to increase jobs at its headquarters.
FOA made public its intentions to exit retail mortgage originations on Oct. 21, following its previous announcements to leave wholesale and consumer direct. A deal to sell the retail business to Guaranteed Rate fell through, according to
This is the second large group of former FOA employees to find a new home. Approximately half of those laid off, along with about 40 offices, have already transitioned
Hallmark opened for business in 2006 after Waterfield Mortgage, where Sturges was a senior vice president at the time,
Sturges met Wadman about two-and-a-half years ago, and kept in touch. Wadman's first call after the FOA decision was made to her.
"I felt very honored to have gotten that phone call," Sturges said. "It took a little bit of time to pull the deal together." She was on her way back to Fort Wayne following an onboarding meeting in Kansas.
Hallmark's goal is to integrate this group into its organization rather than mking any other acquisitions. "Right now, I'm really focusing on making their transition a very good one," Sturges said. "And when you bring on that amount of people, it's all hands on deck and so I don't want to spread my team so far as to let either my group down or them."
Hallmark was already licensed in all of the states Wadman's group operates in, except Georgia and Louisiana; it has applied in those two. And even in the states it already could do business in, the additional people expand Hallmark's reach.
Wadman joined FOA in March 2016, following working for nearly four years at Stonegate Mortgage, the two as a regional vice president, his LinkedIn profile said. Prior to that, for 15 years, he was the senior vice president and operating partner of Advance Mortgage.
"Hallmark is known for its continued strong leadership and team support within the mortgage industry," Wadman said in a press release. "It became evident after discussions with the Hallmark executive leadership team that this was the ideal fit for our associates and clients."
