The Countrywide Conundrum

It’s more than a little difficult to imagine Angelo Mozilo, the embattled chief executive of mortgage lending giant Countrywide Financial, being a Drucker disciple. But just last year he didn’t hesitate to paint himself that way and, in at least one sense, he was right.

“As the late Peter Drucker once said, the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity,” Mozilo told an audience of bond holders, bankers, and others. “This is the essence of Countrywide’s culture.”

Countrywide, lashed like many other companies by the subprime storm, isn’t crowing as much anymore. A few weeks ago, it reported a loss of $1.2 billion for the third quarter. Included in that were charges related to plans to cut as many as 12,000 jobs, or about 20 percent of Countrywide’s workforce.