02 October 2007

Countrywide CEO Dumped Stock Before Crash

And it looks like he might very have gotten away with it. Where are Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby when you need them.

Basically, he handled his shares through a trading plan, a sort of high level document which one gives to a broker, which is intended to avoid even the appearance of insider trading.

However, Countrywide Financial Corp. Chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo revised the plan repeatedly in the summer of last year, at about the time that he would have been aware that Countrywide was circling the drain.
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If a guy is changing his plan around, I would think that would send up a red flag. I wouldn't allow my clients to do it," said Thom F. Carroll, a financial planner with the Baltimore wealth management firm Carroll, Frank & Plotkin.

Mozilo adopted a new trading plan, added a second one and then revised it while the housing and mortgage industry slumped, the Times reported, citing regulatory findings.

The changes allowed him to sell hundreds of thousands of additional shares before Countrywide stock plunged.

Sandy Samuels, Countrywide's chief legal officer, said Mozilo's stock sales were all "in accordance with company policy."

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Yeah, right.

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