Countrywide becomes “Bank of America Home Loans”

On Monday Bank of America announced that it had officially dropped the name of Countrywide Home Loans having renamed its mortgage and home equity lending operations Bank of America Home Loans. The new division incorporates Bank of America's previous lending businesses with those of Countrywide.

The rebranded mortgage division Bank of America Home Loans will be based in Calabasas, Calif., which was home to Countrywide Financial Corp.

Bank of America decided to acquire Countrywide in January 2008 in an all-stock deal worth about $4 billion at that time. Later the deal was evaluated at about $2.5 billion when the deal closed July 1 because of a drop in Bank of America's share price.

Countrywide once the nation's largest lender who was heavily involved in subprime lending has accumulated huge loan losses since the subprime mortgage borrowers started to default in 2007.