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MB Financial was eager to buy Taylor Capital because of its commercial lending prowess, not its mortgage unit. However, private-equity firms are said to be in talks to buy the unit.
July 23
Taylor Capital (TAYC) in Chicago is no longer looking to sell its mortgage banking operation.
The $5.6 billion-asset company, which is in the process of selling itself to MB Financial (MBFI), had
Taylor also said that Willie Newman had resigned as president of the mortgage division. Randall Conte, chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Cole Taylor Bank, was named interim president of the division while the company looks to fill the vacancy permanently.
"As we evaluated the possible sale of the division over the past year, we determined that potential buyers didn't share our appreciation for the long-term value of the business," Mark Hoppe, Taylor's president and chief executive, said in the release. "Therefore, we've decided to retain Cole Taylor Mortgage as a line of business going forward both in the short term and subsequent to our planned merger with MB Financial."
Newman wrote in a July email that Taylor was in talks with several private equity firms about selling the mortgage operations, though he also held out hope that the company could convince the $9.4 billion-asset MB Financial to keep the business.
Mitchell Feiger, MB Financial's chief executive, last summer expressed doubts about Taylor's ability to sell the mortgage division. "We expect and are assuming that even if Taylor markets the mortgage business for sale, a sale is either unlikely to occur, or if it occurred, would be very unlikely to yield an amount sufficient to generate additional merger consideration for Taylor's shareholders," he said.
