The head of First Nationwide Mortgage Corp. is leaving his post to start a mortgage company south of the border.
Richard E. Wilkes, president and chief executive at First Nationwide Corp.'s mortgage subsidiary in San Francisco, has announced his resignation, and is going home next month to Texas.
"I'm a transplanted Texan," Mr. Wilkes said from his office. "Living in California when all my roots are in Houston, it's been very different here for me," he said. His decision to leave First Nationwide was made Aug. 10, he said.
Once he returns home, Mr. Wilkes said, he plans to buy Milennium Mortgage Corp., Houston, of which he was president and CEO from 1993 until late last year. Milennium is owned by First Nationwide Corp.'s parent.
Mr. Wilkes plans to use Milennium as a base "to do a number of things," he said, including building a mortgage entity in Mexico. He had been working on a similar project at First Nationwide and, with the bank's approval, will continue his efforts.
"This has intrigued me since I was at North American Mortgage Co.," he said. Mr. Wilkes was president and CEO of North American, Houston, from 1978 to 1988.
He joined First Nationwide in September 1994, when it was bought from Ford Motor Co. by financier Ronald O. Perelman's company, MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., and Gerald J. Ford, a Texas banker.
Mr. Wilkes worked for MacAndrews & Forbes starting in 1989, when he was president and CEO of First Gibraltar Mortgage.
While with MacAndrews, Mr. Wilkes worked with people who enjoy the same thing he does - buying failing companies.
"I prefer to work with companies in distress," he said. In 1988, Mr. Perelman and Mr. Ford bought First Gibralter through the federal government as part of the clean-up of the Texas S&L debacle. Mr. Wilkes joined MacAndrews to head First Gibralter's mortgage efforts.
Both Mr. Perelman and Mr. Ford are acquisitive, Mr. Wilkes said. While at First Nationwide, Mr. Wilkes said he looked at acquisition opportunities, which included mortgage banking, he said.
First Nationwide bought San Francisco Federal Savings and Loan Association this week for $250 million. Industry sources say First Nationwide is buying about $25 billion of mortgage servicing from financially troubled Lomas Financial Corp.
First Nationwide currently services about $24 billion in loans.
