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# Major financial company moves out
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/major-financial-company-moves-out/
- Published: 2008-02-05T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:11:28.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Business, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press Staff*

A financial services holding company that became entangled in the now infamous sub-prime lending debacle last year is moving its operations from Santa Monica to Orange County.

Fremont General Corporation (FGC), whose headquarters were based in the Water Garden, moved its principal executive offices to Brea, the company announced on Monday.

Linda Bandov, a spokeswoman for FGC declined to comment on the specifics of the move, including how many employees worked out of the former Santa Monica headquarters.

“Right now, we’re still in the process (of moving),” Bandov said.

The company in March reached an agreement to sell approximately $4 billion of its sub-prime real estate loans at a discount, “reflecting conditions in the sub-prime mortgage market,” according to a statement released last spring. Fremont officials at the time estimated the sale of the sub-prime loans would result in a pre-tax loss of approximately $140 million.

In selling off the real estate lending portion of the business, Fremont officials were acting in response to a cease and desist order issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which criticized the company for lacking proper risk management policies regarding its sub-prime residential and commercial real estate loans. The company consented to the terms of the order without admitting to the allegations. Fremont Investment & Loans was operating its business and providing mortgage loans to customers with bad credit in a way that increased the possibility that the borrower would fail on their end of the bargain, the order alleged.

The company reported approximately $8.8 billion in total assets as of Sept. 30, 2007.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 5, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/020508.pdf?ref=smdp.com)