The new wholesale: companies such as 360 Mortgage Group LLC, based in Austin, Texas, are part of a new wave of players bringing wholesale back. It's not big-bank wholesale--it's a whole different breed.

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Cover Report: Retail / Wholesale / Correspondent

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The new wholesale: companies such as 360 Mortgage Group LLC, based in Austin, Texas, are part of a new wave of players bringing wholesale back. It's not big-bank wholesale--it's a whole different breed.

Back in January 2009, a blogger calling himself "Mr. Mortgage" wrote an online column with the startling headline that began with the words: "The End of Large-Bank Wholesale Lending." * What prompted Mr. Mortgage's hysterics was the report that JPMorgan Chase & Co., New York, was shutting down its wholesale mortgage lending group, which, in turn, had followed news that Credit Suisse (USA) Inc., New York, had also shut down its wholesale division. * The following year, Bank of America, Charlotte, North Carolina, exited the wholesale lending channel. * To paraphrase Caesar "Rico" Bandello, Edward G. Robinson's character in the 1931 movie Little Caesar, Mother of mercy! Was this the end of wholesale? * Alas, it was the end of Rico Bandello, but not, it appears, of wholesale lending. * A handful of big banks did exit the wholesale mortgage business, but that only cleared the way for scrappy newcomers to fill the void. It was a test of survival for the entrepreneurial firms in those heart-of-recession years. But by 2011, suddenly wholesale lending was hot again and the little guys had become mid-tier players with a leg up on a second wave of newcomers to the market. * On solid ground, the mid-tier wholesale mortgage lenders are laying the groundwork for expansion. In July 2011, 360 Mortgage Group LLC, Austin, Texas, brought in industry veteran Al Crisanty as vice president of national wholesale production. His job will be to exp...

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