The Story Of Angelo Mozilo And Countrywide Financial

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Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide Financial are not household names by any means. The story behind them played a huge role in our country's economic and housing history. The company went from nothing to worth over a billion dollars in a 40 year span. Countrywide Financial would play a role in the housing crash in 2008. Angelo Mozilo made quite the name for himself coming from a poor Italian family in the Bronx. Mozilo was born in 1938 where he was the oldest of five children. He was very involved with school and sports growing up. However, he had asthma which held him back in some aspects of life. In his teenage years, Mozilo worked in a butcher shop with his dad and attended catholic school. Angelo also began working at a mortgage company as …show more content…

They named their fresh mortgage bank company Countrywide Credit Industries. Loeb funded $350,000 while Mozilo funded $25,000 of his own money and received a $75,000 loan into the startup of Countrywide. Los Angeles is where they would open the first office. Their business model was to loan mortgages at a low cost with extremely low risk. They were able to make loans at a cheaper price because they were not taking commissions on selling mortgages. Oftentimes, they would sell their mortgages to other institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make additional profit. The company barely stayed afloat its first few years. Throughout the 1970s and early 80s, Countrywide would continue to gain substantial business in the single-family mortgage sector; the company added branches across California and the entire country as they grew. From a leadership perspective, Loeb was the largest owner and decision maker for the company, and avoiding risk was at the forefront of his strategy. Mozilo was involved with the sales and communication division. Mozilo’s career was flourishing in the 1990s. “In 1991, Mozilo was elected president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, which represents thousands of mortgage professionals and their firms. In 1995, he was inducted into the National Association of Home Builders Hall of Fame, and he continues to serve on the board of its National Housing Endowment Foundation. In addition, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor” (Honoring perseverance,integrity and excellence). He would officially become CEO of Countrywide in