Countrywide Falls; Merrill Cites Bankruptcy Prospect (Update1)

By Elizabeth Hester
A Countrywide branch office Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) — Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, fell for the fifth consecutive day on the New York Stock Exchange after Merrill Lynch & Co. raised the possibility of bankruptcy.

“Effective insolvency'’ would result should creditors force Countrywide to sell assets at depressed prices or investors lose confidence in its ability to raise cash, Kenneth Bruce, a Merrill analyst in San Francisco, said in a research note today.

Shareholders shouldn’t “understate the importance of liquidity,'’ Bruce wrote. “If liquidations occur in a weak market, then it is possible for CFC to go bankrupt,'’ said Bruce, who downgraded Countrywide to “sell'’ from “buy.'’ The company trades under the ticker CFC.

(more…)

Looks like San Francisco’s new Trans Bay Transit Terminal (affectionately dubbed the Tranny Shack by Curbed SF) is getting a lot of attention in the media. Just driving from one appointment to another yesterday I caught a log segment on NPR radio that discussed and debated the merits of the proposed designs. Take a look at some of these designs in the YouTube video above.

The designs are interesting and you can see that the architectural firms involved in the pitch are spending some serious money to help decision makers visualize their concepts. One thing is clear, that SF will be replacing the current San Francisco Tranny Shack with some kind of stunning architectural building.

There is interesting commentary surrounding the discussion of the different designs at: SocketSite, Curbed SF, Soompi Forums and SF Gate.

You can vote and see the results of the publics favorite designs on Sky Scraper Pages.