Herb Sandler together with his wife Marion Sandler purchased Golden West Savings and Loan in Oakland California and created Golden West Financial Corp, the parent company of World Savings Bank.
It was one of the largest S&Ls in the US with assets of almost $80 billion and deposits of $46 billion as of 30 November 2003. In the early 1980s, the Sandlers' World Savings Bank became the first to sell a tricky home loan called the option ARM.
They offered ways to cut down on early payments with misleading advertisements. The couple made a whopping $2.3 billion when they sold their bank to Wachovia in 2006. But losses on World Savings' loan portfolio led to the downfall of Wachovia, which was sold in 2008 to Wells Fargo.
Image: Alfredo Ochoa and his one-year-old daughter, Josefina, attend a rally to ask state lawmakers to stop home foreclosures and help modify loans at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California.| Photograph: Max Whittaker/Reuters
Also read: Over 70,000 job cuts announced in a day
| Live updates on money.rediff.com |
|
Advertisement
