Ocwen Financial cuts 300 jobs in Waterloo

WATERLOO - Ocwen Financial is laying off 300 of the approximately 500 employees at its customer service center in Waterloo.

John Lovallo, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based mortgage servicer, said the layoffs, which represent about 10 percent of the company's 2,900 employees, will occur over the next several months.

'They will span from today through early 2016,” Lovallo said. 'Ocwen cares about its employee base and is trying to make the transition as easy as possible.”

Ocwen Financial on Thursday said it is working with the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber to lease about half of its 155,000-square-foot facility at 3451 Hammond Ave.

Lisa Skubal, vice president of economic development for the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber, said a real estate broker has shown the building to potential tenants.

'We have three entities who are looking for customer service space outside of the Cedar Valley area,” Skubal said. 'They are looking for immediate ‘plug and play' and two of those projects are still in play.

'We would like to see a new business coming to the Cedar Valley area. That would be our preference.”

Ocwen Financial arrived in Waterloo in 2013 when it bought the majority of Ally Financial's mortgage servicing rights portfolio for $585 million. Ally Financial was previously known as GMAC, the in-house lending arm of General Motors.

Ocwen Financial expanded very quickly after the 2008 financial crisis by buying up the rights to service mortgages after new capital regulations made the business too costly for banks to maintain, according to Reuters.

Regulators in New York and other states said investments in systems and procedures did not keep pace with the company's expansion. It is facing a $150 million settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services and has sold off $90 million of mortgage servicing rights since February.