Countrywide is still in a difficult situation by Corina Ciubotaru

The SEC, America's top authority when it comes to financial market control, has recently begun an inquiry in the business of Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, the country's largest mortgage lender. As part of a larger investigation concerning several bosses in the mortgage business, SEC wants to find out how Mr. Mozilo sold stock during the hottest times of the mortgage crisis. Apparently, he has sold more than $130 million in Countrywide stock and news of this enraged the North Carolina state treasurer Richard Moore, who wrote a complaint to Christopher Cox, the chairman of SEC about the matter. Mr. Moore, a Countrywide shareholder, is asking Mr. Cox to begin investigating Mozilo's summer moves on the stock market. The SEC is also reviewing a rule that allows executives to carry out pre-arranged trades as long as they don't possess inside information. In the mortgage crisis, Countrywide Financial was almost bankrupt at one point, but managed to recover after receiving $2 billion in equity investment from Bank of America and $12 billion in investments from its other banks. More recently it announced layoffs of 20 percent or 12,000 jobs due to mortgage defaults and foreclosures, which are expected to cost the company $125 million to $150 million dollars in restructuring charges. Last month, Countrywide cut 4,935 jobs and now hopes to make $57 million of the charges in the quarter ended September 30th. Mortgage funding for September fell 44 percent from a year ago and the company's shares also fell to $17.35 on Wednesday. Its shares fell a total of 57 percent this year.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071017/ap_on_bi_ge/sec_countrywide_ceo;_ylt=Ao_M0.oUcTbz8T3mNXKsu3us0NUE

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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