Guild Mortgage Co., San Diego, has announced the recent acquisition of Liberty Financial Group, a residential mortgage bank based in Bellevue, Wash. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Guild Mortgage was acquired in 2007 through a partnership between its senior management and that of McCarthy Capital, the company said. "McCarthy Capital's approach combines the stability we were looking for in a partner with the resources we needed for continued growth," said Mary Ann McGarry, Guild's president and chief executive officer. Liberty Financial originates nearly $1 billion of prime home loans annually via branches located mainly in Washington and Colorado, Guild reported. Guild Mortgage can be found on the Web at http://www.guildmortgage.com.

Federal banking regulators have closed ANB Financial after finding that the Bentonville, Ark., national bank was undercapitalized and likely to fail. The $1.9 billion-asset bank reported a $59 million loss in the fourth quarter, with nearly $400 million in noncurrent loans. Its parent, ANB Bancshares, closed its wholesale subprime lending business in March. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. arranged for Pulaski Bank and Trust Co., Little Rock, Ark., to take over the national bank's nine offices, along with $212.9 million in insured deposits and $39.2 million in uninsured deposits. The Little Rock bank also agreed to purchase $235.9 million of the failed bank's assets.

Freddie Mac lenders may be "unnecessarily" limiting credit in some areas because of an "overly broad interpretation" of the agency's declining-market policy, a Freddie executive says in a letter to the National Association of Realtors. Freddie Mac has advised its lenders to use the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's housing price index to determine whether a property is in a market where prices are declining and the maximum amount of financing should thus be reduced by 5%. Freddie executive vice president Patricia Cook said the HPI should not be used as "conclusive evidence" that every market in a metropolitan statistical area is declining. "If a lender and/or appraiser determine that the prices in a particular area are actually stable or increasing, and sufficient supporting evidence is provided, the 5% reduction would not apply," Ms. Cook says in a letter to NAR president-elect Charles McMillan. Ms. Cook also says Freddie is working on a "job aid" suggested by the NAR to help lenders "apply our declining markets policy appropriately." Freddie can be found online at http://www.freddiemac.com, and the NAR can be found at http://www.realtor.org.

Federal Housing Administration single-family mortgage originations took off in the first three months of this year, as FHA applications doubled to 181,900 between Dec. 31 and the end of March, according to Department of Housing and Development data. The data also show that FHA-insured loans jumped by 64%, to 89,000, from December to March. Mortgage banking consultant Brian Chappelle estimates that FHA lenders are now taking 200,000 FHA mortgage applications per month and insuring 100,000 loans per month. There are concerns that the FHA might not be able to handle the increase in business. But Mr. Chappelle said the FHA direct-endorsement lenders manage the whole approval process. From an origination standpoint, "there are no backlogs because the lender controls the process," he said. Mr. Chappelle is with Potomac Partners in Washington.

The PMI Group Inc., a mortgage insurer based in Walnut Creek, Calif., has reported a net loss of $274.0 million ($3.37 per share) in the first quarter, compared with net income of $102.0 million ($1.16 per share) a year earlier. PMI attributed the loss chiefly to a net loss of $172.5 million in its U.S. mortgage insurance operations due to increases in paid claims, loss-adjustment expenses and additions to loss reserves, and an other-than-temporary impairment of its investment in FGIC. Net premiums earned in the U.S. MI operations totaled $207.8 million, up 7.2% from $193.8 million a year earlier, PMI reported. In PMI's international operations, PMI Australia reported record net income of $30.5 million for the first quarter, PMI Europe reported a net loss of $13.9 million, and PMI Asia reported net income of $2.7 million. PMI Group can be found on the Web at http://www.pmigroup.com.

HSBC Holdings says it will take $3.2 billion worth of mortgage impairment charges in the first quarter, adding that the "deterioration in the U.S. housing market will extend into 2009." At March 31, 12.5% of its U.S subprime portfolio was 60-days or more delinquent, compared with 11.2% at the end of December. In the same quarter last year HSBC took $1.6 billion in mortgage charges, and in the fourth quarter it suffered $4.6 billion in writedowns. The London-based bank is still smarting from its foray into America's subprime market, which commenced in 2003 when it paid $14 billion for Household Finance, then one of the nation's largest subprime lenders and servicers. Over the past year, HSBC has closed all third-party lending channels that were once part of Household. Even though HSBC continues to take writedowns on its residential holdings, it reported that the "vast majority of our mortgage customers continue to meet their commitments."

Stewart Information Services Corp., Houston, has revised its first-quarter 2008 results following the discovery of an agency defalcation. As a result of the fraud, the company took a pretax charge of $4.6 million, which affected its results on an after-tax basis by $3.0 million, or $0.16 per share. Stewart is now reporting a first-quarter loss of $25.2 million ($1.40 per share). On April 30, it reported a loss of $22.3 million ($1.24 per share).

The Federal Housing Administration will start charging upfront mortgage insurance premiums based on the borrower's credit score and downpayment starting July 14, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Upfront premiums paid at closing will range from 1.25% to 2.25% under the new pricing schedule that will apply to all FHA loans. Currently all FHA borrowers pay a 1.5% upfront premium regardless of risk. By charging slightly higher premiums based on credit risk, HUD expects to create a more financially sound FHA program and reach more borrowers struggling to keep up with their payments on high-cost subprime mortgages. Risk-based pricing will also be used for refinancing delinquent borrowers under the FHA Secure program starting in July. HUD is expanding the FHA Secure program so that borrowers who have missed two or three payments in the previous 12 months can be refinanced into FHA-insured mortgages. The risk-based pricing notice and a mortgagee letter with the underwriting standards for the expanded FHA Secure program are posted on the FHA website, which can be found at http://www.fha.gov.

American International Group Inc., New York, has reported a net loss of $7.81 billion in the first quarter, and its United Guaranty mortgage insurance subsidiary took an operating loss of $352 million due to housing and capital market disruptions. Analysts at Fitch Ratings, which downgraded AIG's issuer default and senior debt ratings from AA to AA-minus in response to the earnings results, said they believe AIG was primarily exposed to housing finance-related risks through $61 billion of structured finance collateralized debt obligations backed mainly by subprime U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities in its $469 billion portfolio of notional credit derivatives. AIG said the operating loss in its MI unit reflected "increased losses incurred in both the domestic first- and second-lien businesses" and occurred despite a 14.3% jump (from the level recorded a year earlier) in domestic first-lien net premiums written during the quarter. AIG also announced the commencement of offerings of common stock and equity units totaling $7.5 billion. If the company completes the capital raise successfully, Fitch said it plans to remove AIG's ratings from Rating Watch Negative and affirm them with a negative outlook. Fitch plans to lower AIG's ratings by one notch if the capital raise is not successful.

Six weeks after announcing its intention to pare $45 billion in mortgage assets, Citigroup said Friday that it will shed $500 billion in assets overall. No details were given at deadline time. The sales were expected to occur in "nonlegacy" businesses outside Citi's core consumer franchise, but also might entail more mortgage-related cuts. Meanwhile, Citigroup said May 7 that it would close mortgage offices in Orange and Irvine, Calif., eliminating 419 jobs, as part of a previously announced consolidation of its home lending businesses amid the housing and credit crisis. According to The Orange County Register, Citigroup is shutting down most of Argent Mortgage, which it bought from billionaire Roland Arnall last year. (Mr. Arnall died this spring.) Overall, Citi is cutting 1,860 jobs nationwide and keeping just 70 sales positions.