American Banker will present its 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award to the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive of Countrywide Financial Corp., Angelo Mozilo.
The executive will accept the award on Nov. 30, at American Banker's
Mr. Mozilo is being honored for leading Countrywide to its current position as the country's largest mortgage company - one that has ridden the ups and downs of that business better than most. In recent years, Countrywide Financial has also evolved into one of the world's biggest banking companies.
Mr. Mozilo's colorful personality - his wit, outspokenness, and self-confidence - is part of the equation, too. Few financial services executives speak so candidly, so often.
For example, on a recent earnings call an analyst asked why Countrywide's results compared so favorably with its rivals'. Mr. Mozilo replied, "Well, we're not like any other lender, Mike, you should know that by now," then yielded to another executive for a more detailed answer.
Mr. Mozilo founded Countrywide in 1969 with David Loeb, who died in 2003. Today, having grown mainly organically, it is by far the largest originator and servicer of home mortgages.
In 2001, Mr. Mozilo brought the Calabasas, Calif., company, then called Countrywide Credit Industries Inc., into traditional banking by buying Treasury Bank of Alexandria, Va. The following year Countrywide underscored its ambitions by adopting the "Financial" handle.
Initially, Countrywide's bank grew at a measured pace, but that did not last long. By the end of the first quarter of 2003 the unit had amassed assets of $3 billion. This past March 31 it had $78 billion.
In keeping with Mr. Mozilo's penchant for setting aggressive goals, his company is shooting for $250 billion in bank assets by 2010, when it is also gunning for a seemingly inconceivable 30% share of the mortgage origination market, versus about 16% today.
With total assets of $175 billion at yearend, Countrywide was the 12th-largest banking or thrift holding company. It ranked 27th in deposits, with $39.4 billion. (Even with a tough yield curve, all that recent growth lifted its banking segment's profits by 58% from a year earlier, to $341 million in the first quarter, and the business generated 30% of pretax earnings, up from 19%.)
Countrywide continues to expand in banking, by building small deposit-product sales "kiosks" inside its retail mortgage offices and slowly adding more products to its offerings. On March 31 it had 87 "financial centers" in 29 markets, up from 31 centers in 14 markets in 2003. Those stores are producing results: 69% of its total consumer deposit-gathering today, versus just half in 2003.
Meanwhile, tough market conditions have made the mortgage business, Mr. Mozilo's first passion, extremely difficult. Yet, without Hurricane Katrina-related charges, Countrywide's profits last year would have broken the company record set in 2003, the height of the refi boom, when people a lot less skilled than Mr. Mozilo could make a fortune in mortgages. Instead, 2005 was Countrywide's second-best year; it made $2.5 billion.
Banking has been just one element of Countrywide's diversification. Capital markets and insurance are the other main legs, and each unit is probably a much bigger force in its respective field than many observers realize. Countrywide has also been financing commercial real estate for about a year, and some rivals fret that it could be a dangerous competitor before long.
Mr. Mozilo is 67. His CEO contract expires at yearend, but he is slated to remain chairman through 2011, and it is unclear how soon he will actually leave the executive offices. A spokeswoman said Countrywide's board would make an announcement on the issue in the next few months.
