Less than a week after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, Walter Investment Management Corp. (NYSE: WAC.BC) on Wednesday announced two key changes to its executive management team.
Chief financial officer Gary Tillett will retire in February, the company said, with former JPMorgan Chase executive Jerry Lombardo taking his place. In addition, Reverse Mortgage Solutions president Jeff Baker was immediately promoted to chief operations officer of the Fort Washington, Pa.-based Walter.
“With the addition of Jerry and the expansion of Jeff’s responsibilities, we continue our steady progress of assembling a premier leadership team that will help us fully realize the potential of our core business by facilitating the speed and effectiveness of our transformation,” Walter president and CEO Anthony Renzi said in a statement.
The management shuffle comes at a key time for the financial services company, which rolled out a prepackaged Chapter 11 plan in an attempt to shed $800 million in corporate debt. RMS, the company’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage servicing arm, was not included in the filing, and the company intends to emerge from Chapter 11 by the first quarter of next year.
“I want to thank Gary for his leadership and contributions during the past four years here at Walter. He has been an important part of our team and a colleague who has worked relentlessly to help our company through many challenging situations, the most recent being our financial restructuring efforts,” Renzi said.
Lombardo was previously the managing director and treasurer of the Consumer and Community Bank at JPMorgan, and also had stints at Ally Financial and Cerberus Capital Management.
Baker, meanwhile, assumed the RMS presidency last fall after joining the company in July 2015. He had previously been a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The RMS subsidiary stopped originating loans in January of this year as Walter exited the reverse mortgage lending business entirely
Lombardo will have a base salary of $450,000, with a target bonus opportunity of $500,000, according to a company SEC filing.
Written by Alex Spanko
