The parent company of Irvine-based subprime lender People’s Choice Financial Corp. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
People’s Choice Home Loan Inc., the parent of People’s Choice Financial, filed a petition on Monday in the Central District of California. The company’s petition lists assets and liabilities both in excess of $100 million. It counts 10,000 to 25,000 creditors.
The move comes less than a week after the company withdrew plans for a $193 million public offering, the latest casualty of the tough market for Orange County’s subprime mortgage sector.
Warehouse lenders including Wachovia Bank and Credit Suisse make up the majority of the company’s largest creditors. Irvine-based subprime lender Option One Mortgage Corp., one of the company’s landlords, is owed $219,422, according to court filings.
People’s Choice leases about 135,000 square feet of office space in the Irvine Spectrum and employs more than 1,000 workers nationally, according to the company’s withdrawn registration statement, which was filed in June.
“Various business and market reasons” were the reason behind pulling the filing, the company said in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week.
The company originated about $5.7 billion in loans in 2005, and about $1 billion in the first quarter of 2006.
