Personally confirmed this morning just a few minutes ago at 11:25 CDT.

I called Countrywide's "Front number" and spoke to a receptionist, asking for James Furash.

I was told "I don't think he's with the company any longer, let me check........ his listing is no longer in the company directory, I'm sorry."

Folks, this is an absolutely huge bombshell. Here is the link to his bio, which is still there on the web site although the link has been removed:

http://about.countrywide.com/bios/Biography.aspx?CtlID=24

From bio..... (I'm sure they'll pull this as soon as they find out they've been "outed" for real in a blog!)

"James S. Furash is President and Chief Executive Officer of Countrywide Bank, FSB, the 11th largest bank in America, and a member of the Countrywide Financial Corporation's family of companies. At the core of Countrywide's evolution from a traditional mortgage company into a global, full-service financial services institution, Countrywide Bank offers consumers a varied and expanding product line, which includes: CD and Money Market accounts, online savings, construction lending, document custody, mortgage lien release and trustee services, commercial and banking, investment services and more.

Since co-founding the Bank in 2001, Furash has held ultimate responsibility for day-to-day operations, including its growth from $75 million in banking segment assets to $88 billion as of October 2006. Having pioneered the Bank's unique, low-cost business model, Furash assembled a management team that, through conservative risk management and efficient operations, has built one of the fastest-growing banks in the U.S.

As President and CEO.... "

Wow.

By the way, his picture on that page shows a young man. 99% odds he did not retire.

C'mon Countrywide, where's the 8-K and press release on this one? You know, when people leave on good terms they name their successor at the same time, file the 8-K and PR immediately, and it all looks good.

THIS smells like dead fish. THREE directors and high-level officers in the last month? What's going on, Countrywide? Got a bad earnings release coming up - or worse?

Let me guess - they'll issue a press release at 10 PM Friday night on this and hope nobody notices?

And by the way, isn't there a legal requirement to file an 8-K on any "material" change? Do you think the CEO of one of your wholly-owned subs leaving is "material"? I don't know... what do you (and the SEC) think? There is a time window allowed (three business days I believe) on this.... of course we don't know when it actually happened....... it might have been months ago! That'd be rich eh? 8Ks? What are those? If you don't file 'em when CEOs of your subs leave, do you file them when you do things like take impairment charges? One has to wonder......

I was first clued into this a couple of days ago but wanted to confirm it personally before I started talking about it. Now that I've called the company myself, and been told he's gone.... well.... here it is.

Disclosure: I'm short CFC

Update: Marketwatch and DowJones have now picked up on this and issued their own "news" stories. Still no PR or 8K from the company though, as of 1:30 PM CDT.

Update #2: Someone really doesn't like the prospects of CFC. Nearly 8,000 July $35 option contracts have traded today - almost symmetrical CALL and PUTs, but the CALLs were done at the bid and the PUTs at the ask. A short call and long put is a synthetic SHORT SALE! It appears that someone, or some group of someones, has shorted eight hundred thousand shares at a basis of right around $33.90 and didn't want it to show up in the time and sales of the stock itself - so they did it through the options traders!

Update #3: Bloomberg has an update on this - they got a "no comment". Nice eh?