Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | M | Mortgage Banking

Frank M. Sillman, CEO, Indymac Mortgage Bank.

Article Excerpt
When he was appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of Indymac Mortgage Bank, Pasadena, California, a division of IndyMac Bancorp Inc., nearly a year ago, Frank M. Sillman declared "the best is yet to come." With this California-based company that has been in high-growth mode in recent years, that may very well turn out to be true.

Sillman joined Indymac in 1997 as a senior vice president and was promoted to CEO and executive vice president of the Mortgage Professionals Division in 2004. During his tenure at Indymac, Sillman has held various leadership positions with the mortgage bank, including heading up product development and overseeing sales and marketing.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Prior to joining Indymac, he founded two retail mortgage banking companies, TCM Mortgage and American Home Credit, both based in Los Angeles. Sillman also previously served as treasurer for five years at Shearson Lehman Mortgage, New York.

Sillman received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, San Diego.

At the time he was named to his current post, Indymac officials credited Sillman with playing a major role in the company's successful strategy to gain market share through Indymac's operations geographically by growing the company's sales force and increasing relationships with mortgage professionals across the country.

Sillman's big job has also come with a tall order, as Indymac Bancorp--the largest savings-and-loan in Los Angeles and the 10th-largest mortgage originator in the nation--recently declared its long-range goal of becoming a top-six mortgage lender in the United States by 2010.

As head of his division, Sillman is one of the key Indymac executives responsible for achieving that goal.

Mortgage Banking recently interviewed Sillman about Indymac's plans for the future, as well as his outlook in general for the residential mortgage market.

Q: Indymac recently announced its goal of becoming a top-six mortgage lender in the United States by 2010, while maintaining annualized earnings per share growth in excess of 15 percent. Among the core strategies were maximizing the potential of Indymac's specialty niche mortgage lending products and establishing new sources of revenue and profits by "incubating or acquiring mortgage related channels, products and services." Can you talk about what you mean by that, and handicap the how and the when of pulling it off?

A: It depends on what measurement you use. I think that we were the 10th-largest [lender], so we're on our way to our goal of being in the top six.

We're going to do it the same way that we've always done it. We have a very disciplined process in how we evaluate businesses, how we track the profitability of those businesses and where we allocate our capital. So we're very conscious about that whole process. We allocate capital to each one of our businesses, and very diligently manage ... the return on equity...