Who's who in wholesale 2005: countrywide once again emerged as the top firm out of this annual ranking of wholesale and correspondent lenders

Mortgage Banking, August, 2006 by Tom LaMalfa

Aurora, at $51.5 billion, was the sixth-largest wholesaler in 2005. About 76 percent of its business came from the correspondent channel. The company focuses on the alt-A market, where it was ranked the nation's largest alt-A lender in fourth-quarter 2005, according to NMN. It was not ranked among the top servicers or subprime lenders.

GreenPoint ranked seventh for the second straight year, with volume of $40.9 billion. Approximately 90 percent of its production came from brokers. The company is best known for its reduced-doc programs. It does not do subprime lending or rank among the biggest servicers.

Earlier this year, GreenPoint's parent, Melville, New York-based North Fork Bancorporation Inc., was acquired by McLean, Virginia-based Capital One Financial Corporation, the credit-card company.

ABN AMRO and Indymac were tied for the title of eighth-largest wholesaler, each with $40.6 billion of production. Broker accounted for 72 percent of ABN AMRO's wholesale production, ranking it the sixth-largest table funder. ABN AMRO is the nation's eighth-largest servicer, per NMN, but does no subprime lending.

Indymac also originated $40.6 billion of third-party business last year. Almost 70 percent of its wholesale business came from mortgage brokers. The company, which is not a top-ranked servicer or subprime lender, specializes in alt-A originations.

Bank of America was ranked ninth-largest wholesale producer at $26.5 billion. All of its purchased production came from table-funding mortgage brokers. Last year it set up an alt-A conduit and restarted a correspondent program. Bank of America was the sixth-largest servicer, per NMN. It does not do subprime lending.

National City, producing $26 billion, was the 10th-largest wholesaler in 2005--one position below where it stood a year earlier. Slightly more than three-quarters of its activity involved brokers. It was the nation's ninth-largest servicer last year, according to NMN. National City's sister company, First Franklin, was the ninth-largest subprime lender.

Top table funders

Figure 4 ranks 2005's top-10 table funders. Countrywide led the pack at $103.3 billion, $17 billion above its year-earlier rank and $4 billion above its prior record high in 2003. The company has held the top spot in five of the past six years. Ranked second was Washington Mutual, with $79.2 billion of broker production, up 8 percent from the prior year. Wells Fargo was third-biggest table funder at $51.8 billion. Wells Fargo pushed Chase out of that position this year.

Chase Home Finance was ranked fourth in 2005 with $50.4 billion, up 7 percent from its year-earlier production level. GreenPoint ranked fifth largest at $36.8 billion, $3.2 billion ahead of the prior year. All of the firms in the big-five advanced year-over-year.

Ranked sixth in broker originations was ABN AMRO at $28.8 billion. It also ranked sixth in 2004. Indymac was seventh-largest, with $28.1 billion. Ranked eighth in table-funded business for 2005 was Bank of America at $26.5 billion, down one spot from the previous year.