Gerald Soloway, CEO of Home Capital is seen in his Toronto office on May 13, 2010.
Gerald Soloway, the long-serving chief executive officer of alternative mortgage lender Home Capital Group Inc., is retiring.
Mr. Soloway, 77, will leave the company he co-founded and led for nearly 30 years on May 11, Home Capital said in a statement Monday.
Company president Martin Reid will replace Mr. Soloway as CEO, while Mr. Soloway will remain on the board of Home Capital and its two subsidiaries, Home Trust and CFF Bank.
A lawyer by trade, Mr. Soloway was among a group of partners who started company in the late 1980s, carving out a niche catering to homeowners with bruised credit, the self-employed, and others who didn't otherwise qualify for a conventional bank mortgage.
Since then, Home Capital has grown from roughly a dozen employees and $51-million in assets to more than 870 employees and $25-billion in loans. It has seen setbacks, including a continuing internal investigation into 45 brokers who allegedly submitted applications to Home Capital containing fraudulent income documents.
Mr. Reid joined Home Capital in 2007, after a career with Deutsche Bank and Dundee Bank of Canada, which was bought by Bank of Nova Scotia in 2007. He has been Home Capital's president since 2010.
"I know that the company is in great hands, and I am very confident in their ability to take Home Capital to new heights under the leadership of Martin Reid," Mr. Soloway said in a statement.
Mr. Soloway's retirement will come as little surprise to investors. He previously hinted at plans to step down, telling a conference call with analysts earlier this month that the company's board was expecting to announce succession plans within the next several quarters.
"The entrepreneurial spirit of Home Capital and the value the company has created are testaments to Gerry's hard work and to his vision," board chairman Kevin Smith said in a statement.
Tamsin McMahon