ACC Capital fires employees as subprime market goes South

“ACC Capital Holdings, parent company of subprime and nonprime lenders Ameriquest Mortgage Co. and Argent Mortgage Co. LLC, fired an unspecified number of workers today to save money in a contracting market for home loans to people with bad or incomplete credit. The firings will affect workers in all of ACC Capital’s businesses: Ameriquest, once the biggest U.S. provider of subprime loans; Argent, a provider of home loans to consumers through independent brokers; and AMC Mortgage Services, which supervises home loans and collects payments from borrowers. ‘This is a very challenging nonprime market,’ Chris Orlando, spokesman for the closely held, Orange, California-based company, said in a statement. `Only companies with the ability to control costs and improve loan quality are going to be successful’.”