U.S. Bancorp's home mortgage unit has bought AssuraFirst Financial Co., a family-owned Southfield, Mich., mortgage bank with 15 retail branches and a wholesale division.
The purchase, announced Wednesday, closed last week. The Minneapolis banking company did not say how much it paid.
AssuraFirst has about 140 employees, and at one time had been named Homestead Mortgage USA.
U.S. Bancorp expects the purchase to immediately boost its retail originations and loan officer count by about 8%. With the deal, it entered Michigan, Texas, and Indiana and picked up mortgage branches in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
In an interview, Dan Arrigoni, the president of U.S. Bank Home Mortgage, said that retail originations made up about 80% of AssuraFirst's $500 million of production last year.
AssuraFirst's founders - Warren, Dennis, and Gary Carr - had sold it to Temple-Inland Inc.'s Guaranty Bank several years ago with plans to retire soon afterward. They bought it back in 2004, when Guaranty decided to leave the mortgage business. Two Carr family members joined U.S. Bank Home Mortgage's retail management team.
