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San Fernando
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Riding it Out

Meltdown. Crisis. These are the words that most often have been used to describe the financial industry over the past 12 months. A major bank failed, bringing images to television screens worldwide of people frantic to retrieve their money. Lenders with any exposure to real estate, whether residential or commercial, have been quaking in their Guccis. Countrywide, which had been one of the region’s largest employers and one of the nation’s largest purveyor of mortgages, has been merged into Bank of America. Metrocities, one of the other largest mortgage lenders, saw its founder retire and the company acquired. The Valley office market has been impacted as hundreds of small and mid-size mortgage brokerages closed their doors. Bank stocks, regardless of their size, are generally trading at or near their lowest points in the recent past, while most of the credit unions on our list had lower net assets and net income from the year before. But taking a step back and looking at things overall locally, so far the financial institutions headquartered in the region actually seem to be holding their own. While all have seen their stock prices dive, that seems to be more a function of the market as a whole rather than due to specific performance issues. Three showed a negative net income while the new banks all reported profitable first quarters. In this special issue we report on two courageous groups who are in the process of starting new banks; companies that are utilizing technology to combat mortgage fraud and helping small banks compete with the big boys; women in the banking industry; and give an update on PennyMac, one of the newest entries into the marketplace. Finally, we’ll briefly highlight goings-on with our local banks.

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