Sovereign Veterans Join MetLife Unit

MetLife Inc.'s home loan unit has hired two former executives from Sovereign Bank to manage its new warehouse lending division.

Charlie Clark, who left Sovereign last year, has been named vice president and director of warehouse lending with Paul Chmielinski joining him as MetLife Home Loans' No. 2 official in charge of warehouse.

Both executives will work out of MetLife's offices in Boston. MetLife Home Loans is based in Irving, Texas. The parent company is based in New York.

Chmielinski, who also carries a vice president title, left Sovereign, a Rosemont, Pa., unit of Banco Santander of Madrid, in January.

The two bankers joined MetLife last week. In a brief interview Clark said he is "really excited" about joining the company, but could not provide any details about its plans in warehousing.

"Stay tuned. There's more to come," he said.

Reporting to Clark is Dee Linkletter, an operations manager in Texas who has been laying the groundwork for the business for about a year.

Besides entering the warehouse business, MetLife expanded into correspondent lending this year.

In mid-2008 MetLife bought the origination and servicing divisions of First Horizon National Corp. of Memphis.

The sale was accomplished through an asset purchase that included 230 retail and wholesale offices.

MetLife Home Loans today ranks 12th nationwide among residential lenders, according to National Mortgage News' Quarterly Data Report.

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