Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

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A buyout of hobbled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial likely would be approved by regulators, analysts say, because otherwise the company could file for bankruptcy, further disrupting the market for home loans.

Bank of America Corp. is in talks to acquire Countrywide, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported Thursday online, citing unidentified people familiar with the deal. The transaction would put the country's largest mortgage lender, which has experienced a surge in home-loan defaults and has seen its share price plummet, in the hands of the largest U.S. bank by market capitalization.

A Bank of America-led buyout is "the one and only hope that (Countrywide) has" to avoid bankruptcy, according to Sean Egan, managing director of independent ratings firm Egan-Jones Ratings Co. Egan-Jones warned earlier this week that Countrywide could "falter" unless it receives an infusion of $4 billion in capital within the next two weeks.

"I cannot imagine that the regulators want Countrywide to go under," said Bert Ely, a banking industry consultant in Alexandria, Va. "I think they're actually quite nervous about that."......
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Could some one, in an unbias way, tell me what BAC has to gain in this transaction? Realistically, what do they have to gain they could not buy for themselves without taking on the unknowns inherant to CFC?

casey-

I've been wondering the same thing (what's in it for BoA?)

Some sources say that Countrywide's "loan servicing" business is valuable as an apparent stand alone.