Robert Barba

The future is bright for mortgage servicers, but his PE firm agreed to sell Homeward Residential to Ocwen because it had held the investment long enough — and owning stock in a bigger servicer will pay off, billionaire Wilbur Ross said.

Ocwen Financial in Atlanta has agreed to buy Homeward Residential Holdings from WL Ross & Co. for $750 million in cash and stock.

Three years to the day he joined the struggling company, Joseph Campanelli handed the reins to Michael Tierney. Flagstar reported its first profit since 2008 in the second quarter, but credit issues linger.

Bank deals priced at or below tangible book value grew steadily in the first three quarters of 2012, and more are said to be coming as struggling banks start to turn the corner and attract buyers.

Summit Bank & Trust in Broomfield, Colo., has hired R. John Rhoades as its president and chief executive.

The $1 billion-asset bank unit of Heritage Oaks Bancorp (HEOP) on Monday announced it would acquire a branch in Morro Bay from Coast Bancorp (CTBP) in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Wintrust Financial in Rosemont, Ill., has agreed to buy another failed bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

To satisfy creditors, Big Sandy Holding's bankruptcy plan, filed on Thursday, calls for an auction of its $840 million-asset unit, Mile High Banks.

Hampton Roads Bankshares in Norfolk, Va., has completed its $45 million rights offering, though its private-equity partners were the largest contributors.

BNC Financial Group (BNFI) in New Canaan, Conn., has promoted Robert J. Palermo to become the president of Bank of Fairfield.

Taylor Capital (TAYC) will take a $3.7 million charge for the third quarter after its bank decided to extinguish some of its outstanding debt.

Dwight Utz wanted to accelerate his North Carolina company's growth by bringing in private equity. Less than year after ECB's plans fell through, the company agreed to sell to Crescent Financial, which has plenty of backing from private equity firms.

Private equity may have played a role in the deal. Crescent, led by Scott Custer, has PE backing, while an infusion set for ECB fell through earlier this year.

United Community Financial (UCFC) in Youngstown, Ohio, has reduced its classified assets nearly in half through a bulk sale.

Opus Bank in Irvine, Calif., has completed its acquisition of ten branches from PacWest Bancorp. The companies said in separate press releases that the transaction closed on Friday. Opus rebranded the branches over the weekend.

First PacTrust said Gregory Mitchell , who had been its CEO since November 2010, had resigned. The resignation comes roughly a month after the company said Mitchell would share the CEO title with Steven A. Sugarman.

Jay Sidhu, the head of Customers Bancorp in Pennsylvania, has received about as much money from private investors in recent months as it sought to raise in its canceled IPO.

BNCCorp (BNCC) has reached a settlement with its insurers more than two years after the Bismarck, N.D., company discovered that it had been defrauded by a mortgage servicer.

The advantages a public company has in buying open banks outweighed the relatively low pricing of its initial public offering, National Bank Holdings CEO Timothy Laney said on its first day of trading.

FirstBank Holding in Lakewood, Colo., will close 15 branches in its home state, reflecting an increase in its customers' reliance on electronic banking.