An undisclosed number of job cuts will come after C-BASS, a New York firm that specializes in buying high-risk home loans, completes its buyout of some assets and the mortgage service operation of PCFS Mortgage Resources. Terms of the deal, which is set to close by year-end, weren't disclosed.

Both companies said C-BASS would buy about $900 million in loans originated and secured by Provident. C-BASS also is buying the mortgage servicing operation of PCFS, which includes about $8 billion in loans originated and secured by others.

C-BASS intends to keep PCFS Mortgage's Atlanta office open but close the Cincinnati office, said Chris Kemper, a Provident/National City spokesman in Cincinnati.

He declined to say how many people the two offices employ.

Efforts to get a comment from C-BASS were unsuccessful Monday.

Kemper said the final part of PCFS Mortgage business, which provides financing for other companies that originate mortgages, would be merged into National City's mortgage operations in Cincinnati

The latest news comes two months after National City Corp. said it was shutting down a PCFS Mortgage unit that originated mortgages, leaving 110 people at its offices on Vine Street in downtown Cincinnati jobless. An undisclosed number of PCFS jobs also were cut in Irvine, Calif.

Provident said in June said it was looking for a buyer for PCFS Mortgage in a move unrelated to its then-pending $2.1 billion purchase by National City.

National City has not said how many of Provident's 3,200 employees will lose their jobs in the wake of the acquisition, which closed in July.

Kemper also said it isn't known what will happen to PCFS Mortgage's office space downtown.

E-mail jmckinney@enquier.com