Mortgage Blog

Nashville's successful luring of AllianceBernstein's corporate headquarters (complete with 1,050 high-paying jobs) was already considered a coup, since the city beat out the South's more traditional financial powerhouse: Charlotte. A new report on that city's incentives offer shows just how much the Queen City wanted to win.

According to emails obtained by The Charlotte Observer, the financial services giant would have received an incentives package worth between $29 million and $30 million had…

It's the latest move in the Boston-based insurer's larger plan to crack the Empire State insurance market.

HomeStreet expects the changes will save the bank $13.2 million per year.

Alan Mason

Managing Director, Blackrock

Alan Mason took a wending route to become an executive at one of the world’s largest financial services firms, in charge of an asset portfolio of $2.5 trillion. After growing up in a small town in the South, he enjoyed a career as a concert oboist and spent time as an ethnomusicologist. His nontraditional background served him well while working at Barclays Global Investors during its 2009 acquisition by Blackrock. It helped him successfully meld the two…

Michael Melnitzky is becoming a go-to investment banker that sports franchises and prospective team owners can rely on … as long as they are not asking him for a ride.

The New York City product is a quintessential denizen of his city: He went into high finance and earned a degree, but not a driver’s license.

“Maybe I am ahead of time” not knowing how to drive, he said laughing, referring to the rise of ride-sharing apps like Uber, and the coming of self-driving cars.

Road skills aside,…

People in the Birmingham metro area could soon be able to receive free financial literacy training.

BBVA Compass, through its charitable foundation, is offering nonprofit organizations in 21 markets across its seven-state footprint – including Birmingham – the opportunity to apply for grants from $5,000 to $40,000 to launch financial education workshops.

“We want to build a network of opportunity, a place where people can come to get financial education so they can experience a fuller measure…

With wedding season in full swing, many couples are tackling fun to-dos like selecting a venue, sampling cake and auditioning bands, but there’s one critical task too often overlooked before saying ‘I do.’

The conversation around merging finances isn’t nearly as pleasant as other parts of wedding planning, but it’s arguably the most critical. According to the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts, money issues are the third leading cause of divorce, preceded only by incompatibility…

In local news:

Bank of America Merrill Lynch will pay more than $15 million to settle claims that its traders lied about how much they paid to acquire mortgage bonds, allowing the bank to charge a higher price to clients buying securities, reports The Wall Street Journal. That includes $10.5 million that must be returned to customers and a $5.2 million civil penalty, according to the newspaper. BofA Merrill Lynch is the investment-banking arm of Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC).

Yesterday's…

“We’ve been steadily growing over the last 10 to 12 years and adding people every month and year.”

Equity Bancshares Inc. plans to acquire City Bank and Trust of Guymon, Okla., from Docking Bancshares Inc.

“Adding diverse community bank markets, like Guymon, with strong local ties remains a core component of our strategy,” Brad Elliott, chairman and CEO of Equity Bancshares, said in a release. “CBT fits our footprint nicely, as an additional location for our Southwest Kansas market, and this transaction will provide additional resources for our Oklahoma customers.”

Equity expects the deal…