First he sold toxic loans. Now he tries to get rich selling the foreclosures

Posted Jul 1st 2009 2:20PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Bank of America (BAC)

In case you needed another reason to hate Countrywide Financial (in which case I can't help you with further proof that we did in fact land on the Moon), here's a good one: Former executive managing director Andrew "Drew" Gissinger III has started a new firm in San Diego, the boom gone bust city where he once played in the National Football League.

His new firm will serve as a real estate broker for bank-owned homes: some of which will doubtless be bank-owned because of bad loans that were made under Mr. Gissinger's watch.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "Mr. Gissinger left Countrywide shortly after the lender was taken over by Bank of America in mid-2008. While at Countrywide, he was one of the company's most prominent internal cheerleaders. In late 2007, as Countrywide struggled, he tried to rally loan officers. "I've made a lot of people rich or richer who have joined me on my past crusades," he said in a telephone conference then."

And now, having made Countrywide Financial's shareholders quite a bit poorer -- and then passed the losses onto taxpayers when Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) required a massive bailout, Mr. Gissinger is looking to rebuild his own net worth by taking advantage of the flood of foreclosures that his company was arguably the major force in creating.

Mr. Gissinger told the Journal that "We're just a little company trying to do what's best."

Well I'm just a blogger trying to tell Mr. Gissinger what would actually be best: Get out of the real estate business and go find another industry to mess up.

Tags: Andrew Gissinger, AndrewGissinger, BAC, Bank of America, BankOfAmerica, Countrywide Financial, inthenews