Ex-Countrywide COO starts new mortgage company

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Countrywide Financial Corp CFC.N Chief Operating Officer Stanford Kurland has created a mortgage company that will focus on buying loans from financial companies trying to reduce their mortgage exposure.

At least nine other former Countrywide officials are joining Kurland in the creation of the Private National Mortgage Acceptance Co, which like Countrywide is based in Calabasas, California, according to PennyMac's Web site.

A spokeswoman on Thursday confirmed that the company and the Web site are real.

Before leaving Countrywide in September 2006 after a 27-year career there, Kurland had been considered the likely successor to Angelo Mozilo as chief executive.

At PennyMac, Kurland is chairman and chief executive. David Spector, a former co-head of global residential mortgages at Morgan Stanley (MS.N) in London and senior managing director of secondary markets at Countrywide, is chief investment officer, PennyMac said.

PennyMac said its focus is on "investing and servicing residential mortgage assets on behalf of private investors."

Countrywide last year lost $703.5 million, its first annual loss in more than 30 years. It agreed in January to be acquired by Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) for about $4 billion.

David Sambol replaced Kurland as Countrywide's chief operating officer. Bank of America has named him to lead the combined companies' mortgage business.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel, editing by Richard Chang)