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Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette Waterfield won’t speak on sale rumors A major Fort Wayne employer has spent the past two weeks trying to quash rumors of an imminent sale that could eliminate hundreds of local jobs. But despite the best efforts of Waterfield Mortgage Inc., the whispers persist. On Dec. 23, WTHR-TV, Channel 13, in Indianapolis, posted a report on its Web site that said Waterfield was preparing to announce the sale of its mortgage operation to Melville, N.Y.-based American Home Mortgage and its banking operation, Union Federal Bank, to Bowling Green, Ohio-based Sky Bank. The station withdrew the report about an hour after it was posted, saying all the facts had not been verified. Representatives for two sources quoted in the report, Gov. Mitch Daniels and Indiana Economic Development Corp. President Mickey Maurer, told The Journal Gazette on Wednesday that WTHR took their comments out of context. They had no communication with the companies about any kind of acquisition. But one woman quoted in that report said Wednesday that Waterfield employees – mortgage originators working in retail branches, not corporate headquarters – have confirmed for her that the stories concerning a sale to American Home Mortgage are true. Darli Stoughton, president of the Greater Indianapolis Mortgage Bankers Association, said, “They don’t know (when). Some just know it’s coming.” Stoughton, vice president and northern retail manager for Colonial National Mortgage in Indianapolis, is not affiliated with Waterfield. She didn’t discuss the Union Federal-Sky Bank deal with the Waterfield employees she spoke with. Donald A. Sherman, Waterfield’s chairman and chief executive, released a brief statement to The Journal Gazette late Wednesday afternoon. “You are reporting a rumor. Our policy is not to address rumors or conjectures about business transactions,” he said through Lisa Grote, the company’s corporate communications manager. Waterfield employs about 750 in Fort Wayne and about 2,000 companywide. The company announced in July 2004 that it would cut at least 300 jobs across the company – with most coming from Fort Wayne – because a customer didn’t renew a loan processing services contract set to expire Jan. 3, 2005. The companies mentioned with Waterfield in the WTHR report also declined to comment Wednesday. Mary Feder, American Home Mortgage spokeswoman, said the publicly traded company doesn’t respond to rumors. Tim Dirrim, Sky Financial Group Inc.’s vice president of corporate communications, cited the same policy. “These kinds of rumors go on all the time in the financial services industry. And our policy is not to comment, plain and simple,” he said Wednesday. Dirrim acknowledged that as a publicly traded company, Sky can’t legally make statements about pending mergers and acquisitions. And Sky knows a little something about acquisitions. The company has been averaging two or three a year. “We make no bones about the fact that we are an acquiring company,” he said, adding that making acquisitions is one of the company’s five strategic priorities. The most recent, announced Tuesday, was of a Pittsburgh-based insurance agency. Sky Financial Group’s most recent bank acquisition – the $12.8 million purchase of Stow, Ohio-based Falls Bank – was announced June 21. While each deal is handled individually, Dirrim said, most of the banks the company acquires keep their employees, adopt the Sky Bank name and are integrated into Sky Financial Group. If Sky is negotiating to buy Union Federal Bank, the deal would bode well for those Indianapolis-based employees. Waterfield’s mortgage-side employees might not fare as well. Feder, of American Home Mortgage, did not return a follow-up call asking what happened to employees of Irwin Mortgage Corp., her company’s most recent acquisition. A statement dated March 14 said that Irwin employees in the community mortgage loan production branches in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii and Washington would be offered jobs. The statement does not address support operations, such as those found in Waterfield’s Fort Wayne headquarters. Josh Boyd, a Purdue University communication associate professor, said privately owned companies such as Waterfield can seem more mysterious because they don’t have to meet the same disclosure rules that apply to publicly traded companies. Waterfield executives are making a mistake by not sharing more information with employees, even if it is bad news, he said. Boyd doesn’t endorse the company’s policy of not commenting on rumors. “That kind of blanket statement can be problematic because it tends to discount what people care about,” he said. “Whatever happens, the relationship between employees and the company is going to be damaged after this.”
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