Jerome Selitto has resigned as president and chief executive of PHH Corp., Mt. Laurel, N.J., and has been replaced by the company's chief operating officer Glen Messina.
A company spokeswoman said it had no further comment other than what was in its press release.
Selitto came to PHH in August 2009 during a period of turmoil at the top of the company. Earlier that year, dissident shareholders elected former Freddie Mac CEO Gregory J. Parseghian, along with another candidate to the company's board over A.B. Krongard, at the time PHH's chairman, and Terence W. Edwards, its president and CEO.
James Egan assumed the chairman's role after that election, where he remains today. After a brief search, Selitto, whose background included being a founder of both home equity lender DeepGreen Financial and mortgage insurer Amerin, came on board at PHH.
Messina was hired by PHH in July 2011, after spending 17 years at General Electric, most recently as CEO of GE Chemical and Monitoring Solutions.
However, he also spent time as CEO and chief financial officer of GE's mortgage services business.
PHH had a net loss of $148 million during the third quarter of 2011 due to a $361 million write-down of mortgage servicing rights values. But during its conference call, Selitto said in the conflict between economic realities and generally accepted accounting principles, he concentrates on managing the company to core earnings and not unrealized losses mandated by GAAP.
On that level, PHH had core earnings of $64 million, helped by $95 million in profits in the mortgage production segment.
PHH recently has had some shakeup in its private label client base, losing Charles Schwab, but adding five new ones, including Ameriprise, Morgan Stanley and Barclays. During the call, Messina said those five companies should contribute $7 billion in volume in 2012, double what was expected from Charles Schwab.
