The company employs roughly 11,300 workers, a spokeswoman said.

The company said it plans to cut up to 50 percent of its mortgage sales force, reduce support staff and close underperforming mortgage branches.

The company plans to trim the real estate portfolios on its balance sheet by making further changes in its consumer and construction lending business. New originations are expected to decline significantly as a result, First Horizon said.

"We're going to be aggressive and dramatically improve our performance and efficiency by keeping only our most productive sales performers, who for us generate almost 90 percent of our production," Jerry Baker, chief executive, said in a statement "This strategic shift will reduce our real estate exposure and position us appropriately for the expected ongoing contraction of the housing market." said Baker.

The company also will exit certain unidentified national markets for business banking, and it will move the national cross-sales of deposit products to an Internet-based model, eliminating the need for banking specialists in mortgage offices.

First Horizon National, which reported a 78 percent decline in its second-quarter profit, announced in July it would sell, shut or consolidate certain branches.

In after-hours trading, shares of the company added a penny to $29.47.