Earlier this month, RMG Mortgages wound down its Calgary office and let go about 2/3 of the office staff. It did that to merge underwriting & servicing with its and MCAP’s Vancouver, Toronto & Kitchener offices.

This is something we suspected might happen when writing about MCAP’s buyout of ResMor (RMG’s predecessor) in December 2011. In fact, that story ticked some people off for suggesting that jobs might be lost—but alas, that’s exactly what happened.

After hearing this news, we decided to let this story pass. But in the last few weeks, brokers have emailed us questioning RMG’s staying power—because of this office closure. And usually, when we get multiple emails on the same topic, it means others are thinking the same thing.

The fact is, RMG’s decision was a logical business move to eliminate redundancies and become more efficient. From the looks of it, it had no other effect but to improve the company’s operations going forward.

Consolidation is nothing to be ashamed of in business and it’s a natural side effect of mergers. MCAP spokesperson Jack Shapiro told CMT, “This was a difficult decision, but one that we had to make.”

There will always be layoffs and healthy downsizing in our industry. But as far as RMG is concerned, it is stronger than ever and is, as stated, committed “to the broker channel in Canada for the long term.”

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Rob McLister, CMT