Countrywide’s Fall From Grace |
| Newsweek - Aug 24, 2007 |
It didn’t quite have the drama of J. P. Morgan orchestrating a bailout of the stock market in 1907, or of New Deal-era efforts to salvage the banking industry or of the 1998 rescue of Long-Term Capital Management. But make no mistake about it. Today, Countrywide Financial, the largest mortgage company in the United States, was bailed out--by fellow California native, Bank of America, with a minor assist from the Federal Reserve.
Until recently Countrywide, which rode the mortgage boom, was seen as a beneficiary of the meltdown. Last fall, mortgage companies--mostly smaller, subprime operators--began to fail. And as is typically the case after a bubble, a well-heeled consolidator seemed poised to pick up market share on the cheap. Countrywide, which had a comparatively small presence in subprime and possessed a powerful, national brand name, a bank and a healthy mortgage-servicing business, seemed built to withstand the storm. At the beginning of this month, Countrywide acquired five retail branches formerly belonging to the bankrupt subprime lender HomeBanc.
Read Full Article from Newsweek
- Posted: 2007-08-24 10:44:50
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