Notes

Taking advantage of a favorable real estate market, Spring Mountain Escrow Corp. in Newport Beach is expanding its operations into Northern California with plans to open 10 offices from Redding to Monterey. The new offices will give the firm 55 offices statewide and make Spring Mountain one of the larger escrow companies nationwide, said Frank O’Bryan, the firm’s owner and president. He said the company also hopes to open offices in Hawaii and Nevada in the near future. The move to expand out of its Southern California base is aimed at providing “better service to our builder clients who operate statewide,” he said. O’Bryan said the privately held firm generates annual revenue of up to $15 million on about 16,000 real estate transactions that are valued at more than $3 billion. Spring Mountain is the name he gave to the Shearson/American Express Escrow Co., which he bought 3 years ago. Last year, Spring Mountain bought the escrow division of Security Pacific National Bank.