Wachovia Considering Branches in Southland

Wachovia Corp. may open 200 branches in Southern California in the next five years after gaining a foothold in the market with its purchase of Westcorp, Vice Chairman Ben Jenkins said Friday.

Jenkins, who also heads the bank’s retail and business banking unit, said he was reviewing a possible expansion in the region this year and probably would not start building until 2007. Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia is also looking at real estate properties “primarily in Los Angeles” to house its regional headquarters, he said.

Wachovia paid almost $4 billion for Irvine-based Westcorp and its WFS Financial Inc. unit Wednesday, gaining 19 branches and the state’s biggest provider of used-car loans.

California offers “great density, great income and great growth,” Jenkins said. “We are trying to decide exactly how we want to expand there and we’re taking 2006 to do that, but we expect to be active in 2007 building new offices.”

Wachovia will start recruiting commercial bankers this year to start lending to businesses in the area, a process that typically leads branch openings by 12 to 15 months, he said.

Wachovia in December purchased AmNet Mortgage Inc. of San Diego, which has a nationwide network of 7,000 mortgage brokers. It funded $9 billion in residential mortgages in 2004.

Jenkins said Wachovia was considering hiring as many as 500 mortgage brokers this year, adding to its base of about 900.

The Mortgage Bankers Assn. predicts that mortgage originations will decline 20% this year from last year’s $2.77 trillion.

That’s a “fairly dramatic downturn in originations, but we think our originations will be up this year even in the face of a decline for the industry,” Jenkins said.