Sallie Mae Buys MortgageLender

RESTON, Va. - (06/16/05) -- Student loan giant Sallie Mae saidit has entered the mortgage lending business with the acquisitionof Superior Home Mortgage in New Cumberland, Pa. Sallie Mae,formerly known as SLM Corp., has been expanding outside its corestudent loan servicing business since hatching privatization plansin 1996 and plans to use its customer base of nine million studentborrowers as entry into the mortgage market. Sallie Mae waschartered by the federally government in 1975 to facilitate asecondary market for guaranteed student loans originated by banksand credit unions but since its privatization, completed inDecember, it has grown into a diversified lender in competitionwith many of the banks and credit unions it was chartered toserve.