It just looks bad!

Yes, this title was used once before here ... in reference to Angelo Mozilo's 2007 sales of Countrywide Financial shares just prior to the price plummeting last summer.

It's being used again today ... in reference to the "Colorado ski trip for bankers" hosted by none other than Countrywide Financial, as reported($) in today's Wall Street Journal.

Countrywide Treats Bankers to Ski-Resort Trip
The U.S. home-mortgage industry is in the dumps. That doesn't mean the party is over for mortgage bankers.

Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender by loan volume, will host about 30 representatives of smaller mortgage banks for three nights next week at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch ski resort in Avon, Colo. At one of the country's most-glamorous skiing spots, a regular room on a weekday starts at $750.

The first items on the agenda for guests arriving Monday evening: Cocktails and ski fittings. Next is dinner at the Spago restaurant, whose menu includes Kobe steak with wasabi potato puree for $105. (For the budget-minded, pan-roasted buffalo filet with Kabocha pumpkin flan is $54.)

The annual event is for bankers at correspondent lenders, which originate loans and then sell them to Countrywide. The Calabasas, Calif., lender is paying for hotel rooms, meals, skiing and tips, according to a program distributed to attendees.

The schedule calls for four-hour business meetings Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, followed by skiing and dinner. Those dinners are at Zach's Cabin, where diners arrive by sled, and at Larkspur in Vail, Colo., where the menu includes California farmed Alverta President caviar, listed at $140.50.

Many companies entertain business partners in luxurious settings, of course. But this event stands out because of the company's circumstances. Countrywide's board agreed last month to sell to Bank of America Corp. for about $4 billion, less than a fifth of its market value 12 months earlier.

Rising defaults and falling home prices led to losses of about $1.6 billion at Countrywide in the second half, and the company has reduced its work force by 11,400, or 19%, since July.

Naturally, a Countrywide spokesman was contacted, but declined to comment.

The photo above is from this Time Magazine report where Countrywide founder Angelo Mozilo was not voted Man of the Year, but was one of the "People that Mattered" in 2007.