Countrywide chief to resume selling of shares
Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of Countrywide Financial Corp., plans to resume selling Countrywide shares next week under a trading plan adopted last October, the company said Friday.
The Calabasas-based firm would not say how many shares would be sold.
A Times analysis, however, has found that 422,000 to 772,000 shares probably would be sold based on details of the October 2006 plan, which was previously disclosed by Countrywide.
Using Friday’s closing price of $20.25, the sales would generate $8.5 million to $14.6 million.
All the shares will be sold next week, according to a company statement, indicating that Mozilo will unload 84,400 to 154,400 shares each day.
“The upcoming sales are driven by rules within the [trading] plan that were established long ago, and should in no way be viewed as any indication of my future outlook for Countrywide,” Mozilo said in a statement.
“I recognize that the company’s stock is currently under pressure. However the terms of the plan. . . require that these sales be executed,” he said.
Over the course of the last year, Mozilo has netted roughly $138 million by exercising and selling Countrywide stock options, according to a Times analysis of his trades.
Those sales were all conducted under the aegis of so-called 10b5-1 trading agreements.
Executives use such arrangements to sell shares in their companies according to a predetermined plan, to protect themselves from charges of insider trading.
Experts said Mozilo’s plans were unusual because he set one up in late October last year, a second one in mid-December and then revised the December plan in February.
The two trading plans allowed Mozilo to sell 580,000 Countrywide shares each month -- roughly 265,000 more shares than he was selling each month during 2005 -- as Countrywide stock declined in value because of trouble in the mortgage market.
Company officials said Mozilo had made the changes on the recommendation of his financial advisor.
Mozilo halted trading on Aug. 13, when Countrywide’s shares dropped below $28 a share. The chief executive later said that his plan didn’t allow trading below that price.
The October 2006 plan will expire this month, Countrywide said in a statement. The plan’s rules require all remaining shares to be sold regardless of Countrywide’s market price, the company said. Mozilo had 72,000 unsold shares in August and 350,000 in September.
It is unclear whether Mozilo also needs to sell an additional 350,000 shares this month.
