In the days leading up to its acquisition by Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) founder and chief value destroyer Angelo Mozilo is getting emotional. Business Week reports that the man whose tan makes George Hamilton look like Casper "choked up" at the company's annual meeting to approve the deal. In an emotional speech, Mozilo described his love of the organization he'd built and described his tears as a "drawback of being Italian."Let's see: Mozilo sold hundreds of millions of dollar in stock at several times the current price, and will now walk away from battered shareholders with a bloated net worth resulting from horrific corporate governance, leaving Bank of America to deal with the shareholder lawsuits and attorneys general investigations into the company's practices.
Remember Tammy Faye's tearful interviews after her televangelist collapsed amid revelations of extramarital affairs and air-conditioned doghouses? It might not be quite as pathetic, but Mozilo is one of the few people who can give the late Ms. Faye a run for her money in the unsympathetic display of emotion department.
I somehow doubt that shareholders were moved by Mozilo's speech, which was delivered in a shareholder meeting free of a question and answer session, marked by an overwhelming security presence reflecting the number of people who hate Mr. Mozilo.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-01-2008 @ 9:00AM
roudy11z said...
I assure you he will pay for his sins like Ken Lay did maybe? Then maybe a particle stroke would be better and longer lasting.Let us wait and see.
RoudMan
7-01-2008 @ 12:46PM
Steve in Denver said...
Did anybody, including BAC go into any of this blind?? No. Frankly that includes the borrowers from Countrywide who got THEMSELVES...THEMSELVES in trouble because they either didn't or couldn't read the documents that were laid before them to sign. Mozilo is not any more an opportunist than anybody else, and he not only got rich, he enabled a lot of other people to get rich, too. As has been explained to me by several mortgage people, if one lender had not made these loans, the borrowers would go crying to another one that would. Further, my guess is that after all the bloviating about the various types of "crisis" the media has dreamed up and beaten to death over a realtively small percentage of mortgages going bad blows over, the fact that BAC will have the largest network of mortgage offices in the country, and their stock will blossom.
7-01-2008 @ 3:14PM
Americas Watchdog said...
We have the National Mortgage Complaint Center and with respect to Bank of America singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" with the purchase of Countrywide------dream on.
Bank of America has just made the biggest mistake in financial world history. Ken Thompson former CEO of Wachovia was just fired for his buying Golden West AKA World Savings----a big player in "pay option ARM's. BAC's Lewis---------just bought the King of Pay Option ARM's. BAC is only off about 40% in a year. With the buy back provisions set forth in MBS agreements Ken Lewis just purchased $100 billion liability.
Stupid is as stupid does. We think Ken Lewis wanted to show everyone that his was bigger and his ego would not let him walk away from his $2 billion investment in CFC from last year.
Time will tell but we think BAC just made what could be a fatal mistake.
7-03-2008 @ 6:23PM
Dick Randalll said...
Mozilo is crying all the way to the bank---not BOFA, because of its junk bond status & fear he might lose his hussled BOFA millions when they go belly up due to the purchase of the dog, Countrywide. Is America great, or what?
7-06-2008 @ 3:02PM
Japippy said...
The author of this article mentioned "the many that hate Mozilo." Of course there are probably thousands who relied on his smooth assurances that CFC was in GREAT FINANCIAL SHAPE (but even a minus sign is a shape, isn't it?) but has any one given much thought to how much the FBI along with the SEC is going to just love him to death when they get around to doing a full investigation on him. I'm not really in a position to accuse him of anything; but I think that the average person, would think that what he did with somewhere in the vicinity of $400,000,000.00 just at the onset of the company turning itself upside down with bad debt and rapidly diminishing real estate values has to say something. Sort of reminds me of when Hillary made all of that money in the commodities market. No, there was "nothing illegal about that. It was just a lucky call on her part." Yeah, Right.
Jim