^^ Earnings. We rule.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/s ... 5212.shtmlWashington Mutual: We'll add 700 jobs
Seventh-largest U.S. banking company seeks $2.1 million tax refund credit, $420,000 from city.
By CHRISTOPHER CALNAN
The Times-Union
Washington Mutual Inc. plans to add 700 workers to its Jacksonville office over the next three years as it consolidates seven national locations, according to a business development plan submitted to the city.
The Seattle-based financial services company is requesting a tax refund credit of $2.1 million, or $3,000 per job, from the state to help offset some of its expansion costs. The city would be required to pay $420,000, or 20 percent, of the total refund.
Washington Mutual spokeswoman Adrian Rodriguez declined to confirm the job figure Monday, saying it would be premature until the plans are firmer. He also said an unknown portion of the new jobs will be taken by relocated Washington Mutual employees.
The proposal is scheduled to be considered by the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission Thursday.
The proposal also comes less than four months after Washington Mutual said it would lay off 188 Jacksonville employees, mainly during the first quarter of the year, as a result of organizational changes.
Washington Mutual, a publicly held Fortune 500 company, is the seventh-largest banking company in the United States. It operates more than 2,400 offices nationally and employs 2,100 workers at its 565,000-square-foot facility on Baymeadows Way.
It's also the largest customer in the mortgage-servicing business of locally based Fidelity National Financial Inc., Fidelity Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Foley confirmed Monday.
However, Foley said the relationship between the two companies wasn't a factor in Washington Mutual's Jacksonville expansion plans.
The expansion would cost Washington Mutual $1.2 million, the development plan says.
The average wage for the 700 new jobs would be $36,590. About 450 of the positions are identified on the plan as processing and operations; 225 are described as call center support jobs; 25 are management positions.
Washington Mutual, which started in Seattle in 1889, became publicly owned in 1983. In 1996, the company began an expansion outside the Northwest.
Last year, Washington Mutual formed a partnership with former NBA star Magic Johnson to open home loan centers in under-served communities. The company said it has since opened centers in Harlem, N.Y., Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
Washington Mutual and its subsidiaries have total assets of $275.18 billion.
In late January, the company said it would lay off nearly 3,000 employees nationwide by March 1. The Jacksonville job cuts stemmed from the Washington Mutual merging of its retail banking and home lending business groups.
Fidelity National, which processes nearly half of all U.S. home loans through its Jacksonville mortgage operation, reached a new four-year agreement to process mortgages for Washington Mutual in November or December, Foley said Monday.
In 2002, Washington Mutual acquired Jacksonville-based HomeSide Lending Inc., which had its own mortgage-processing system, and indicated it would switch to the HomeSide system by 2006.
Washington Mutual accounted for $53 million of Alltel Information Services mortgage unit's $279 million in revenue in 2002, a unit now owned by Fidelity National.
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Wewt!
