Fastest-Growing Big Companies
Countrywide Branches Out Beyond Mortgages
NEW YORK - The company is no longer known as Countrywide Credit Industries but the mortgage company founded in 1969 by Angelo Mozilo and the late David Loeb has been pumping out home loans with factory-like efficiency over the past few years.
On the back of historically low interest rates, the company now known as Countrywide Financial churned out $434 billion in new loans in 2003, compared with $252 billion in 2002, making it the largest independent mortgage lender, slightly ahead of $384 billion in home lending for Washington Mutual and just behind the $470 billion of production by Wells Fargo.
But Calabasas, Calif.-based Countrywide earned its place on our list of America's 25 Fastest-Growing Big Companies for its 33% annual revenue growth over the last five years as the fastest-growing company among U.S. financial services firms on the Global 2000. Countrywide's earnings per share--at $8.31 per share in 2003 versus $3.25 per share in 2002--and stock price, up nearly 180% since the end of 2001 to just under $56, have shown that the company has been able to translate that revenue surge into earnings.
At an investor meeting in late March, Chairman and Chief Executive Mozilo rolled out a five-year strategic plan for Countrywide to augment its position in the mortgage banking sector and reduce its sensitivity to interest rate changes. The company plans to grow out capital markets, banking and insurance such that those divisions contribute 50% of earnings by 2008. Additionally, the company is aiming for a more sustainable 15% cumulative annual earnings growth over that period in what it calls a "normal" market.
