Sorry Countrywide correspondent sellers. No posh ski trip to Avon, Colorado this year. Countrywide canceled the excursion, replete with Kobe beef, caviar and a trip to Spago due to the recent mortgage crunch. Not that cash is so tight – just the negative PR around the event seemed to be a bit too much.
So why does Freddie Mac get a pass on the Ritz-Carlton holiday party but Countrywide gets lambasted? I guess the sensitivity has been cranked up a notch in the press.
From the New York Times on the canceled Countrywide ski trip:
Countrywide Financial, the besieged mortgage lender, has canceled a gathering of bankers from smaller mortgage banks at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch ski resort (where room rates begin at $725), Countrywide said in a statement on Sunday.
The company was to pay for 30 invited guests? hotel rooms, meals, skiing and tips.
In the statement, the company said that ?in light of recent events? it had decided to cancel all gatherings with business partners and clients for the rest of the year, moving quickly after being criticized for planning such an extravagant event.
The three-night gathering, which was to include business meetings as well as skiing, drinking and sampling expensive meals like $140 caviar and Kurobuta pork osso bucco at the Spago restaurant, had already drawn negative press. ?Let ?Em Eat Kobe Steak,? a headline in The New York Post sneered on Saturday.
Last 3 posts by Morgan
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