Zacks.com Highlights: MetLife (MET) Ends Forward Mortgage Unit

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Jan 12, 2012, 08:30 ET

CHICAGO, Jan. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. The stock recently featured in the Zacks Analyst Blog include: MetLife Inc. (MET – Snapshot Report).

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MetLife (MET) Ends Forward Mortgage Unit

MetLife (MET), announced the closing of its forward residential mortgage business, which originated under MetLife Home Loans.

Management had been already exploring a sale of this business as announced in October last year. The closure in turn is expected to lay off about 4,300 employees, about 6.5% of MetLife's total 66,000 employee base, associated with this business.

MetLife Home Loans is the residential mortgage division of MetLife Bank, an operational segment of MetLife that has been posting radical losses over the last several quarters. MetLife Bank accounted for only 2% of the company's operating earnings in the third quarter of 2011, while its bank holding company status has been attached with stringent regulations.

However, MetLife Home Loans will honor the majority of its contractual loan commitments, most of which are expected to be off the record within 3 months, thereby continuing to serve its current reverse mortgage originations.

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Meanwhile, MetLife (MET) projects to incur costs of $90–100 million, scheduled for 2013. However, we expect increased compensation and benefit expenses over time, given the bulk of layoffs.

Furthermore, in an attempt to bow out of its banking company status, on December 28, 2011, MetLife (MET) had agreed to sell its bank deposits worth $7.5 billion to GE Capital – the financial services unit of General Electric Co. (GE). The deal is expected to culminate by the end of the first half of 2012, subject to regulatory approvals. Meanwhile, MetLife (MET) is also exploring the sale of the remaining custodial deposits worth $3.0 billion in the upcoming months.

MetLife (MET) is likely to furnish a fresh capital plan to the Federal Reserve (Fed) this month, in order to hike dividends and recommence stock buyback, thereby deploying its excess capital (about $6-7 billion) efficiently.

However, in October last year, the Fed had rejected the company's plan based on the size and scale of its bank operations, and has been since then closely and strictly supervising MetLife.

Hence, MetLife (MET) has long been aiming to divest its banking segment.

Management is also undertaking this step to re-focus on its core insurance operations. These efforts are expected to be accretive to earnings in the long run.

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