Citi’s Country-Bred Banker Blows $31 Million-Whistle; The Pain in Spain: Wall Street Roundup
Citi’s country-bred whistle-blower: Sherry Hunt started her career in the mortgage business as a 17-year-old mom processing home loans in Alaska. By the age of 55, Ms. Hunt was supervising 65 loan officers in Citigroup’s mortgage unit. The year was 2004, and business was booming. Citi was buying loans from outside lenders that had been secured with phony documents, and Ms. Hunt’s reports highlighting defective loans were being buried. The housing bubble popped, of course, and Citi took $45 billion in Federal bailouts. That didn’t stop the bank from processing defective loans. In 2011, a supervisor told Ms. Hunt and a colleague that if the number of loans being classified as defective didn’t fall, it would be “your asses on the line.” The country girl turned banking executive didn’t back down. In the spirit of all great Americans, she went to court. Bob Ivry goes there too, profiling Ms. Hunt, who would ultimately win $31 million in a whistle-blower suit against the banking giant, in July’s Bloomberg Markets magazine. Read More
