MetLife Bank’s chief executive officer Donna Demaio was named as one of American Banker’s Most Power Woman in Banking.
Coming in at #14, Demaio has been busy taking advantage of opportunities left from the mortgage crises by purchasing EverBank’s Reverse Mortgage division and First Horizon home loans and instantly making it a player in the origination business. "We used to be a little bank attached to a big insurer, and now we’re a little bank with a big mortgage business," DeMaio says.
MetLife is now the eighth-largest mortgage provider and fourth-largest seller of reverse mortgages according to the article. Staff count has ballooned from 85 to more than 3,000; asset size nearly doubled, to $15 billion, and net income in the second quarter of 2009 more than tripled, to $108 million, over the same period last year.
"As with any acquisition, you always have the integration to deal with in the first year, but it’s gone as well as one could expect," says DeMaio, explaining that she spent much of the past year visiting branches and easing employees into the MetLife fold.
MetLife’s reverse mortgage business is growing quickly with volume up 125% over last year according to RM Insight. The company has endorsed 2142 HECMs YTD and is the 6th largest reverse mortgage lender in 2009.
