HomeSide Lending Inc. has sent its former mergers and acquisitions chief, Dale Fauss, to Australia to help chairman Joe K. Pickett oversee global mortgage operations.
The move came after National Australia Bank Ltd.'s $1.23 billion acquisition of the Jacksonville, Fla., mortgage lending company in February.
Mr. Fauss, 35, will be senior vice president and assistant to Mr. Pickett. He and his family have already relocated to Melbourne. Mr. Pickett will follow late this month, according to HomeSide spokeswoman Judy Garfinkel.
"I will depend on him to help transport the very things that have made HomeSide such a success" in the United States, Mr. Pickett said.
HomeSide will use as its platform the regional banks owned by its new parent. National Australia operates in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong, as well as in the United States.
HomeSide's primary goal is to reduce costs of the Melbourne bank's global servicing operations, including National's other subsidiary, National Irish Bank.
In the United States, HomeSide continues building operations under chief financial officer Kevin D. Race. It recently hired Alan Howard as first vice president and senior counsel.
Mr. Howard, 38, will be primary counsel to HomeSide's capital markets group, which handles the company's mortgage securitization program, public debt issuance, and acquisitions.
At the end of last year, HomeSide ranked as the nation's fourth-largest residential mortgage originator and seventh-largest servicer.
Mr. Pickett has said that several other servicing and technology managers will eventually relocate to Australia.
