A mortgage wholesaler headquartered in Reno is hunkered down, trying to see if it can weather the hurricane that's sweeping through its industry.
The future of MLSG Inc. remains uncertain, its president said last week.
At its peak, the company employed about 130 people in its headquarters along U.S. 395 in South Meadows. Today, only a dozen staff members are at work.
MLSG posted a notice on its Web site telling mortgage brokers that the company has discontinued acceptance of loan applications and isn't funding mortgage loans at this time.
The notice blamed "current secondary market conditions."
"We will continue to assess the markets and adjust our operations accordingly," the company said on its Web site.
Paul Russo, president of MLSG Inc., said the company's executives are waiting to see how the mortgage market settles out before they decide whether to resume full operations.
The industry Web site mortgagedaily.com quoted Russo as saying the company suspended business until it can "figure out what is going on this crazy world."
Like other lenders who packaged mortgage loans and sold them to investors, MLSG watched the secondary market seize up this month as investors lost their confidence in the value of the mortgage pools.
Even though the company isn't accepting loan applications, Russo said MLSG hasn't relinquished its licenses as a mortgage lender.
State regulators are aware of MLSG's decision to wind down its business in the face of chaos in the secondary markets and don't have any concerns about the company, said Brent Boynton, director of communications for Gov. Jim Gibbons. He noted that relatively few of the company's loans were received by Nevada borrowers.
Boynton said state regulators conducted a limited examination of the company's financial condition. The results of that examination remain confidential.
Privately held MLSG, founded in 1990, specializes in developing mortgages for borrowers with credit problems or incomes that are difficult to verify.
It generates those mortgage applications through a national network of brokers.
The company relocated to Reno in 1995 from its previous home in northern California, and it moved into its current 45,000-square-foot headquarters in Reno Tahoe Tech Center in 2005.
