Flagstar Bank has made changes to its third-party origination (TPO) channel leadership. Industry veteran John Gibson is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities, and he will be replaced by Rich Hoffmann as senior vice president and head of TPO lending.
Hoffmann has spent more than 30 years in mortgage banking, 22 of them at Flagstar, where he started as an account executive. He’s replacing Gibson, who spent nearly five years leading the TPO channel and focusing on client experience.
According to Inside Mortgage Finance (IMF) estimates, Flagstar produced $14.2 billion in mortgages through its third-party originator channel in 2023, making it the ninth-largest U.S. lender in the space. Last year’s volume declined 29.5% compared to the previous year.
TPO is the bank’s main source of mortgages. When considering all channels, the lender produced $15.7 billion last year, down 41.6% year and year and ranking No. 24 in the country, according to IMF data.
Flagstar Bank also promoted Lisa Lacey as its East region director.
A bank spokesperson wrote to HousingWire that, in these new roles, “Rich and Lisa will focus on finding opportunities to help clients get the most out of the Flagstar mortgage flywheel,“ which includes the third-party origination channel, mortgage banking finance and treasury management services.
In December 2022, Flagstar Bank concluded its merger with New York Community Bancorp, which recently received a $1 billion equity investment from a group led by former U.S. Department of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s private equity firm, Liberty Strategic Capital.
The investment aims to strengthen the bank’s balance sheet amid a confidence crisis related to its commercial real estate loan portfolio.
In March 2023, Flagstar surprised the market amid the banking crisis by acquiring some assets, liabilities and deposits of Signature Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).
