Do you remember the dot-com bust? The layoffs? The bankruptcies? The meltdown?
Pets.com, Furniture.com, Global Crossing,...etc
As Yogi Berra once said, "It's like deja vu all over again".
As the "red hot" U.S. housing market begins to cool, the realtors, mortgage brokers, home builders...etc will begin the process of "adjusting". By adjusting, of course, we mean layoffs. Lots of layoffs...so it begins.
The Boston Herald is reporting Ameriquest’s owner lays off 3,800.
The parent company of Ameriquest Mortgage Co. and Town and Country Credit laid off 3,800 workers nationally at retail mortgage subsidiaries and closed 229 branch offices yesterday. It has 10 Massachusetts branches.
Orange, Calif.-based ACC Capital Holdings said it’s centralizing the operations into regional mortgage production centers in California, Arizona, Illinois and Connecticut and consolidating corporate functions at its headquarters.
The announcement follows a $325 million January settlement between 49 states, including Massachusetts, and Ameriquest, the nation’s top subprime lender. The states alleged that Ameriquest used predatory lending practices.
ACC Capital would not disclose how many Massachusetts workers lost their jobs yesterday.
“Ameriquest failed to give state regulatory authorities advance notice of its branch closures and has yet to file a closure application with the Division of Banks, which is required under state law,” state Attorney General Tom Reilly said in a statement yesterday.
The New York Post wrote about Ameriquest's Ambassador of Doom
Ameriquest was hit earlier this year with charges by 49 state attorneys general that his company used bait-and-switch schemes to cheat customers into taking out more costly loans.
Billionaire Roland Arnall, who built Ameriquest into the largest mortgage lender for poor credit risks, is shutting down most of his company to focus on being the new U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.
The embattled firm yesterday said it's closing 229 branch offices, firing 3,800 mortgage staffers, and consolidating into just five call centers.
