Real Estate » Loans & Financing

In the end, Countrywide Financial found a white knight in Bank of America. On, Friday the investment firm confirmed that it will buy Countrywide Financial for $4 billion, delivering a much-needed lifeline to the embattled mortgage lender. But the deal, which values Countrywide's shares at $7.16 a share, well below Thursday's closing price of $7.76, simultaneously exposes the dire state of the nation's largest mortgage lender and the industry as a whole.