This rendering depicts the Wallingford headquarters that Mortgage Lenders Network USA plans to open later this year. Construction continues on the building despite the company’s recent announcement that it would stop funding residential loans.

The future of Middletown-based Mortgage Lenders Network USA’s wholesale mortgage operation remains unclear more than a week after the subprime lender shut down operations, leaving customers whose loans had closed but had not been funded in the lurch and laying off company employees.

The state Department of Banking is seeking, but has yet to receive, a signed agreement from MLN stating that the company had secured funding for those borrowers, according to spokesman James Heckman. Meanwhile, reports that Lehman Bros., a New York-based global financial firm, was going to fund those loans and possibly buy MLN’s wholesale mortgage business have gone unconfirmed by either of the companies.

The DOB has been in contact with MLN, Heckman said, but he declined further comment, as did Randy Whitestone of Lehman Bros. A Dow Jones story from earlier this week said the two companies were in discussions.

MLN abruptly pulled financing from its loans on Dec. 29 and cited a lack of warehouse funds. In Massachusetts, about 150 customers whose loans had closed but had not yet been funded were affected. It was not clear how many customers in Connecticut were affected.

Those Massachusetts loans were mostly refinances of primary residences, but included 20 purchase loans, according to the Massachusetts Division of Banks.

Some media reports have said that MLN, which is in the process of building a state-of-the-art headquarters in Wallingford and had hoped to add 1,000 new jobs over eight years, laid off about 100 employees last week. The company did not return phone calls by press time.

MLN released a statement on Jan. 2, which said it would “temporarily discontinue” its wholesale operations but would continue to service its existing loans and keep its retail franchise operating. The company cited the deteriorating economics of the wholesale mortgage market.

“Until we see credit quality and margins return to acceptable levels, we have determined that MLN needs to pause from wholesale broker originations,” said MLN President and Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Heffernan in a prepared statement.

James Pedrick, the company’s executive vice president, last week told The Commercial Record that MLN executives would sit down in the next few weeks to discuss the future of its wholesale mortgage operations. The Associated Press has reported that MLN said its goal last year was to produce more than $12.1 billion in loans, 80 percent of which would be subprime loans.

Pedrick last week also said the construction of the new 305,000-square-foot facility in Wallingford has not experienced a “change in direction.”

But this latest development could put into jeopardy a state loan intended to support the company’s expansion. The state Department of Economic and Community Development was working toward providing MLN with a $4 million loan to support its employment expansion. But last week, DECD employees were trying to discover and evaluate the details of the layoffs and their impact. The spokesman for the DECD was not available for comment at press time.

MLN announced its intention to expand in the state with the new facility, and to add the 1,000 new Connecticut jobs over an eight-year period, in 2005.