FOR THE RECORD:
Countrywide woes: An article in Section A on Aug. 16 about how a credit crunch was affecting Countrywide Financial Corp. said that according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s website, nearly 40% of deposits at the company's Countrywide Bank unit were not insured by the FDIC as of March 31. But the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, the bank's chief regulator, said only 12% of Countrywide Bank's deposits were uninsured. The FDIC subsequently advised using the Office of Thrift Supervision's figure.—

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"I've been doing this for 53 years, and I've never seen that situation sustained," said Mozilo, who co-founded Calabasas-based Countrywide in 1969. "Eventually they gag on it."

Dozens of home lenders have indeed collapsed as defaults have surged on loans made to people with poor credit during the housing boom and as Wall Street has turned off the money tap that funded many of those sub-prime mortgages.

But rather than emerging bigger and stronger as Mozilo predicted, Countrywide -- which made 1 of every 6 home loans in the U.S. in the first half of this year -- now finds itself battling not just its own growing defaults but also a widening credit crunch stemming from the nationwide sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

On Wednesday, the company was said to be having trouble borrowing money on a short-term basis, securities analysts discussed the possibility of a Countrywide bankruptcy and the firm's stock price tumbled 13%, bringing its loss for the year to 50%.

"If enough financial pressure is placed on Countrywide or if the market loses confidence in its ability to function properly, then the model can break," said Merrill Lynch analyst Kenneth Bruce, who warned investors to sell their Countrywide stock, saying the company could go bankrupt if the worsening liquidity crunch gets bad enough.

A bankruptcy filing by the lender would make life uncertain at best for its 61,500 employees, about 15,000 of whom work in Calabasas and elsewhere in Southern California.

An insolvent Countrywide could also do more damage to the country's already weakened housing market, said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication based in Bethesda, Md.

"It would be a huge shock to the U.S. housing system and the mortgage system as perceived around the world -- and make an already bad situation terrible," Cecala said.

Homeowners who make their monthly mortgage payments to Countrywide should not be affected by the company's troubles, experts said.

However, the turmoil could spook depositors at Countrywide Bank, an Alexandria, Va.-based savings and loan that has grown dramatically since Countrywide Financial bought it in 2000. Nearly 40% of the bank's $57.7 billion in deposits were not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as of March 31, according to the FDIC website.

"If something happens to the parent company, the bank should be able to stand alone," said FDIC spokesman David Barr, who advised worried depositors to talk to the bank about structuring their accounts so they are completely insured. The FDIC insures individual accounts up to $100,000, but a married couple can insure up to $1 million in deposits at a single institution by setting up multiple accounts, Barr said.

Countrywide spokesman Rick Simon said no one at the company would comment Wednesday on the bankruptcy speculation or discuss details of the company's situation.

"Management is completely focused on running the business in a changing environment," Simon said.

Several employees interviewed Wednesday afternoon on a sidewalk outside Countrywide's headquarters said reports of credit problems at the company weren't making the rounds inside the huge complex.

"As far as we know, it's a stable company," said a 27-year-old technology specialist who said he had worked at Countrywide for five years and declined to be identified.

The company's operation may indeed be stable, despite its own problems with defaults and foreclosures, which reached the highest levels in at least five years on the loans Countrywide collects payments on.