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Bank of America Corp. (BAC) has invested $2 billion into Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC), in a bid to shore up confidence in the beleagured company. Countrywide has been rocked by the abundance of defaults on the subprime mortgages they had been heavily exposed to.

"Bank of America's investment in Countrywide represents a vote of confidence and strengthens our balance sheet, enabling us to position Countrywide for future growth and success," Angelo R. Mozilo, Countrywide's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

Last week it had to tap its $11.5 billion credit line to keep operations going and growing.

With the investment by Bank of America, they bought $2 billion in nonvoting, covertible perferred stock which yields 7.25 percent annually. The restrictions on the acquisition are they can't convert the shares for 18 months, nor acquire beneficial ownership of more voting shares in Countrywide.

If the share count of Countrywide were to remain the same, Bank of America would be the largest shareholder if they converted the shares, with between 16 to 17 percent ownership of the company. At this time, AllianceBernstein LP is the largest shareholder in the company, with 63.7 million shares, which equates to about 11 percent of the company.

Countrywide shares have lost around half their value so far in 2007.