Five years ago Friday, Bank of America announced it was buying one of the nation's largest mortgage lenders. Bank officials thought the deal to buy Countrywide Financial would cement Band of America's place at the top of the commercial banking business. But it did not turn out that way.
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Corrected: August 8, 2017 at 12:00 AM EDT
In the introduction to this report, we mistakenly say Bank of America bought Countrywide Financial for $40 billion. In fact, BoA paid $4 billion for Countrywide. As of early 2013, when this story was broadcast, BoA had paid about $40 billion in legal costs related to earlier claims made against Countrywide.
