Access National in Va. to Shut Down Mortgage Office

Access National Corp. (ANCX) in Reston, Va., is shutting down a loan office that brought in nearly a third of its profit last year.

The $823 million-asset company will shut down its Denver mortgage production branch by the end of April, it said Friday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The office originated $434 million in loans last year, almost exclusively under refinance programs offered through the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Access is closing the branch because new regulations have raised the cost of servicing them, Chief Executive Mike Clarke told the Washington Business Journal.

"The economics of servicing these loans has become very unattractive," Clarke told the Business Journal. "Some of the people we sell servicing to have done the math and are like, 'You can't pay us enough to make money off servicing these loans.'"

The Denver office opened in 2004 and employs 38 people, the story said. Last year, it was responsible for $22.3 million, or 42%, of Access' total noninterest income, and $5.6 million of the company's profit of $17.7 million.

Access' stock fell more than 21% Friday, to $12 a share.