Angelo Mozilo, key architect of subprime mortgage meltdown, dies (the very orange Countrywide guy)

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https://www.ocregister.com/2023/07/17/angelo-mozilo-key-architect-of-subprime-mortgage-meltdown-dies-at-85/

Angelo Mozilo, who propelled Countrywide Financial Corp. to become the largest US mortgage lender during the housing boom only to see the company crash in the 2008 financial crisis, has died. He was 84.

He died on July 16 of natural causes, said his son, Mark.

The housing bubble that burst in 2008, sending the US economy into a recession and erasing almost $8 trillion in value from the stock market, was built on exceptionally cheap and available credit extended to homebuyers, along with creative options to repay their debt. Countrywide was a pioneer in the field, and, fairly or not, Mozilo became a public face of the financial crisis. Time magazine, citing Countrywide’s loosened lending standards and exotic mortgages, named him one of the “25 People to Blame.”


Mozilo’s long tenure as CEO ended abruptly in January 2008 when Countrywide, running out of funds to finance loans, was sold to Bank of America Corp. for $4 billion — one-sixth of what it had been worth a year earlier. Even at that discount price, the sale came to be seen as a painful mistake by Bank of America, which over subsequent years paid more than $50 billion to resolve regulatory probes and litigation tied to Countrywide.