Countrywide’s loss

Anyone remember Countrywide’s 3rd quarter conference call, when Mozilo said the company would be able to return to a profit in the 4th quarter? Didn’t happen:

The latest results included $1.62 billion in write-downs on its mortgage-servicing rights — which was more than offset by $1.99 billion in hedging gains — and $394 million in write-downs on $7 billion in loans it was unable to sell due to “disruption in the capital markets and a severe lack of liquidity.” The quarter also had $87 million in restructuring charges.

Revenue fell 58% to $1.16 billion from $2.76 billion.

The mean per-share loss estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial was 30 cents on revenue of $1.72 billion.

“While considerably improved from the previous quarter, Countrywide’s results for the fourth quarter of 2007 were adversely impacted by further credit deterioration across the industry and continued illiquidity in the secondary mortgage markets,” said Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo.

Loan production fell to $61 billion from $90 billion in the third quarter. Delinquency rates on conventional loans, prime home equity loans and subprime loans all rose from the third quarter. As of Dec. 31, 33.6% of subprime loans are delinquent, compared with 29.1% in the third quarter. Conventional loans saw its delinquency rate climb to 5.76% from 4.41%.

The company’s provision for credit losses rose sharply to $924 million from $72 million a year earlier, but dipped from the third quarter’s $937 million. Net charge-offs, loans it doesn’t think are collectable, rose to $192 million from $14 million. Non-performing assets rose to 2.9% of total assets from 1.65%.

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