First Community Mortgage announces pending acquisition of a Mortgage Boutique
First Community Mortgage (FCM), announced today that it will acquire a Mortgage Boutique (AMB) in a transaction it hopes to close within the next month, pending regulatory approval. Both privately held mortgage organizations are headquartered in Murfreesboro.
“We are excited to partner with the team at AMB,” says Keith Canter, CEO of First Community Mortgage, and one of the 18-year-old organization’s founders. “There is strong alignment between our two organizations, particularly in the value we place on people – employees, clients, and business partners – and the communities we serve. These strong FCM-AMB synergies will especially enhance our ability to serve additional clients.”
Canter notes that, upon completion and regulatory approval of the acquisition, FCM’s Wholesale Division will rebrand as a Mortgage Boutique. In addition to an enhanced local presence, Canter says adding AMB’s people and processes to FCM will strengthen the organization across the 46 states in which it originates mortgages.
“We are pleased to join with our friends at First Community Mortgage,” says Retta Gardner, Co-Founder of AMB, who will become Executive Vice President of the a Mortgage Boutique Division at FCM, “knowing our combined organizations are truly better together. This merger will enable us to continue to serve our clients, while also enhancing the service experience by leveraging a deeper set of resources. As we begin working together, we’ll focus the strengths of our remarkable alignment on continued growth and leadership in the mortgage industry.”
Founded in August 2019, a Mortgage Boutique was able to leverage previous experience to grow quickly into a multi-state lender serving Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, and Ohio. In addition to Gardner, partners in AMB are Co-Founder and President Nancy Skinner and KJ Harden, who leads Retail Sales. All three have extensive banking, financial and mortgage experience and will join FCM.
“The combined capabilities of our teams are exceptional,” Canter says, “so much so that we have been saying the merger math for this is 1 + 1 = 3. What matters most is that clients and business partners of FCM and AMB will have an even better experience. Our evolution and growth continues, and we will be excited to welcome the AMB family to ours.”
First Community Mortgage, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of First Community Bank of Tennessee, and includes Wholesale, Correspondent and Retail divisions. FCM is a FNMA, FHLMC, and GNMA seller/servicer and offers mortgage solutions to consumers and financial institutions. It funded over $3.5 billion in home loans in 2020, and was recently ranked 5th among top mortgage lenders in Metro Nashville, based on 2019 volume. First Community Mortgage is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS ID 629700. www.FirstCommunityMortgage.com.
