When Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo announced yesterday he was not taking the severance package in the Bank of America takeover you had to wonder what was on his conscience.

Now we know. After telling the world that Countrywide would be profitable in the 4^th quarter they announced a 422 million dollar loss. I would love to be a fly on the wall in the Bank of America mergers and acquisitions department right now. Do you get the feeling there will be a great deal of CYA going on over the next couple of weeks.

Right now Bank of America says the deal is still a go, but you have to wonder what the Board of Directors will do going forward.

Calabasas, Calif.-based Countywide (NYSE: CFC) said Tuesday that it had a fourth-quarter loss of $422 million, or 79 cents per diluted share. Total revenue for the latest quarter fell 58 percent, to $1.16 billion.
In the year-ago period, the mortgage company had a net income of $622 million, or $1.01 per diluted share.
The losses were much wider than analysts had expected, according to data compiled by Thomson Financial. Though analysts’ predictions varied wildly, reflecting the difficulty of untangling much of Countrywide’s business, the average forecast was for a loss of 30 cents per share on sales of $1.72 billion.
Countrywide’s losses also flew in the face of the company’s prediction, made when it announced a $1.2 billion third-quarter loss, that it would return to profitability in the fourth quarter.  via Triangle Business Journal

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