News Press Releases

Signature Bank Appoints Corporate Mortgage Finance Group

SBNY | June 2, 2022

Private Client Banking Team Members, Resources and Systems Now in Place for Launch of New Business Line

Signature Bank (Nasdaq: SBNY), a New York-based, full-service commercial bank, announced today the appointment of its Corporate Mortgage Finance (CMF) Group. The CMF group provides financing solutions for a range of mortgage-related collateral across Signature Bank’s national footprint. The Signature Bank CMF Group is experienced in understanding the complexities of the mortgage origination, servicing and investment sectors and works with clients to structure commercial and residential mortgage-supported financing facilities to meet their strategic liquidity and balance sheet management needs.

Heading the new CMF team is Kenneth D. Logan, Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB), who brings more than 35 years of real estate finance, warehouse lending, asset-backed structured lending and corporate finance to his new role as Managing Group Director and Senior Vice President. In this capacity, Logan oversees the Group’s strategy, direction and execution as well as handles portfolio and credit management responsibilities. Prior to joining Signature Bank in 2021, Logan spent 12 years at Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and Wells Fargo Securities, LLC (including time at predecessor Wachovia Bank) as Managing Director of the Mortgage Banker Finance Group, which he founded and headed. In this role, Logan had executive leadership and daily management oversight of all aspects of this business. During his career, he also founded and led four successful mortgage finance groups for other large institutions and was a founding shareholder of a community bank, also engaged in mortgage finance.

On the heels of Logan’s appointment, other key banking professionals were added to the CMF Group, which now totals 14 colleagues. Several of these individuals previously worked together at their former institutions.

Kelly Kucsma was appointed Director of CMF Operations and Senior Vice President, responsible for all operational areas of CMF, including client onboarding, individual loan approvals, loan level and client level monitoring and treasury functions related to funding and repayment of transactions. Kucsma spent 21 years at Wells Fargo Bank (and predecessor Wachovia Bank) in Charlotte, N.C., most recently as Director, Warehouse Lending Operations and Transactional Due Diligence within their Asset Backed Finance and Mortgage Banker Finance Group. During her tenure, she held a range of mortgage banking related leadership roles, spending 14 years specifically in Warehouse Lending Operations.

Paul Tirella and Michelle Marrapodi were each named Associate Group Director and Vice President - CMF, handling business development and relationship management, working with mortgage lenders, aggregators and servicers nationwide to represent Signature Bank’s suite of financing services to the mortgage industry. This includes the financing of residential, business purpose, multi-family and commercial mortgage loans and servicing rights.

Tirella joins from Bank United where he was a Vice President - Business Development for the Residential Warehouse Group. For five years, he aided in growing the residential mortgage warehouse lending business, sourcing a plethora of counterparties, which led to the business line’s expansion. Other roles included banking relationship management and credit-related positions at UBS and JPMorgan Chase & Co., among others.

Marrapodi, with more than three decades of banking experience, had been Senior Vice President, Warehouse Lending at Prosperity Bank. In this position, she developed and managed warehouse lending relationships with independent mortgage banking firms nationwide. Throughout her career, Marrapodi held related roles at ZAIS Group, EverBank, Astoria Federal Savings, MetLife Home Loans and Credit Suisse First Boston, just to name a few.

Keith Ashworth was appointed to Operations Manager and Vice President for the CMF Group, where he manages non-treasury operations for CMF. Bringing more than two decades of experience to his role, Ashworth was Operations Manager and Vice President at Wells Fargo in Atlanta for 12 years, during which time he worked with both Logan and Kucsma.

Michael Tenkerian, with 20 years of industry related experience, was named Vice President and Treasury Manager for the CMF Group, overseeing cash management and wire transactions. Previously, he spent seven years at Bank of Hope in California as Senior Vice President and head of Warehouse Lending.

Melissa Marini, with 21 years of financial services and mortgage banking expertise, is Vice President of Specialty Operations for the CMF Group, where she evaluates applicable lending opportunities for the Group. She also joins from Wells Fargo Bank (Charlotte), where she was an underwriter for 15 years and worked with certain members of the Signature Bank CMF Group.

Jason Carter, as Vice President, Underwriter and Portfolio Manager with CMF, handles reviewing of financial and collateral information for prospects and oversees a portfolio of direct and indirect asset-based credit facilities. He manages the loan documentation process coordinating activities with underwriters, field examiners and operations staff to ensure proper ongoing account administration. For five years prior to joining Signature Bank, Carter was Vice President – Portfolio Manager at Associated Bank in Chicago.

Christine Castner was also appointed to the post of Vice President, Underwriter and Portfolio Manager with CMF, primarily underwriting new facilities and monitoring existing deals. With a career spanning 30 years, she spent the past eight as Vice President, Senior Credit Analyst at Prosperity Bank before joining the CMF Group. Castner also was Senior Credit Officer, Warehouse Lending at Ally Bank and spent 10+ years with GMAC/RFC, starting as an analyst and then moving into the credit officer role.

Other professionals with substantial mortgage finance experience rounding out the CMF Group are:

Stacey Estes, Client Support Lead
Bernadette Johnson, Mortgage Operations Specialist
Janeen Allgood, Mortgage Operations Team Lead
Tamara Ward, Mortgage Operations Specialist
Khendra Hunter, Treasury Specialist
Caitlin Schwab, Operations Support

“Throughout the past decade, we have demonstrated many times over to the marketplace our keen ability to identify opportunities for adding complementary business lines and attracting veteran teams who built an expertise within their areas. We have nurtured these initiatives, delivering solid results across the board. The CMF Group will be no exception. We have assembled a group of top-notch professionals who possess extensive warehouse lending experience, all of whom bring distinct talents within this novel space to our enterprise. With the addition of these seasoned colleagues, we look forward to the increasing contributions the CMF team will make as well as the business line’s growth and impact,” explained Joseph J. DePaolo, Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer at Signature Bank.

Logan commented on his development of the CMF Group: “The Bank’s mission-driven approach and client-centric philosophy affords my team the chance to truly leverage our vast expertise, build our business line and grow autonomously. All the professionals in the new CMF Group bring a deep expertise within our niche business, which will bode well for the Bank’s growth as it moves forward in this arena.”

About Signature Bank

Signature Bank (Nasdaq: SBNY), member FDIC, is a New York-based, full-service commercial bank with 38 private client offices throughout the metropolitan New York area, as well as those in Connecticut, California and North Carolina. Through its single-point-of-contact approach, the Bank’s private client banking teams primarily serve the needs of privately owned businesses, their owners and senior managers.

The Bank has two wholly owned subsidiaries: Signature Financial, LLC, provides equipment finance and leasing; and, Signature Securities Group Corporation, a licensed broker-dealer, investment adviser and member FINRA/SIPC, offers investment, brokerage, asset management and insurance products and services.

Since commencing operations in May 2001, Signature Bank reached $121.85 billion in assets and $109.16 billion in deposits as of March 31, 2022. Signature Bank placed 19th on S&P Global’s list of the largest banks in the U.S., based on deposits at year-end 2021.

Signature Bank was the first FDIC-insured bank to launch a blockchain-based digital payments platform. Signet™ allows commercial clients to make real-time payments in U.S. dollars, 24/7/365 and was also the first solution to be approved for use by the NYS Department of Financial Services.

For more information, please visit https://www.signatureny.com.

This press release and oral statements made from time to time by our representatives contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You should not place undue reliance on those statements because they are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties relating to our operations and business environment, all of which are difficult to predict and may be beyond our control. Forward-looking statements include information concerning our expectations regarding future results, interest rates and the interest rate environment, loan and deposit growth, loan performance, operations, new private client teams’ hires, new office openings, business strategy and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on each of the foregoing and on our business overall. Forward-looking statements often include words such as "may," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," “potential,” “opportunity,” “could,” “project,” “seek,” “target,” “goal,” “should,” “will,” “would,” "plan," "estimate" or other similar expressions. As you consider forward-looking statements, you should understand that these statements are not guarantees of performance or results. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements and can change as a result of many possible events or factors, not all of which are known to us or in our control. These factors include but are not limited to: (i) prevailing economic conditions; (ii) changes in interest rates, loan demand, real estate values and competition, any of which can materially affect origination levels and gain on sale results in our business, as well as other aspects of our financial performance, including earnings on interest-bearing assets; (iii) the level of defaults, losses and prepayments on loans made by us, whether held in portfolio or sold in the whole loan secondary markets, which can materially affect charge-off levels and required credit loss reserve levels; (iv) changes in monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. Government, including policies of the U.S. Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; (v) changes in the banking and other financial services regulatory environment; (vi) our ability to maintain the continuity, integrity, security and safety of our operations and (vii) competition for qualified personnel and desirable office locations. All of these factors are subject to additional uncertainty in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine, which are having impacts on all aspects of our operations, the financial services industry and the economy as a whole. Additional risks are described in our quarterly and annual reports filed with the FDIC. Although we believe that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, beliefs and expectations, if a change occurs or our beliefs, assumptions and expectations were incorrect, our business, financial condition, liquidity or results of operations may vary materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements. You should keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made by Signature Bank speak only as of the date on which they were made. New risks and uncertainties come up from time to time, and we cannot predict these events or how they may affect the Bank. Signature Bank has no duty to, and does not intend to, update or revise the forward-looking statements after the date on which they are made.