COUNTRYWIDE VENTURE RECEIVES ANALYSTS' KUDOS.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

A joint venture announced Wednesday between mortgage lender Countrywide Credit Industries Inc. and a United Kingdom-based company was hailed as a milestone for Countrywide and a step toward globalization of the mortgage industry.

The mortgage industry has always been a highly localized business, with lenders typically serving clients in and around their own regions.

But Countrywide, which already has a national reach and is considered an innovator in the industry, is jumping across the sea into a foreign market - a rare if not unheard of occurrence.

``It's very rare for mortgage lending to cross borders,'' said Thomas O'Donnell, a mortgage finance analyst with Salomon Smith Barney in New York City. ``We may be taking incipient steps toward a more global mortgage market, but it's in the early stage.''

Wall Street was unimpressed with the announcement. Shares of Countrywide increased a meager 56.25 cents to $39.75 on 345,800 shares traded, or roughly 40 percent less than the 30-day average volume.

Countrywide and Woolwich PLC announced on Wednesday their intent to form a European mortgage banking joint venture. Under the venture, Countrywide will provide its sophisticated technology and expertise to service the portfolio held by Woolwich, which has operations throughout the United Kingdom and in France and Italy. The joint venture will market its services to other lenders.

Woolwich's mortgage servicing portfolio is worth $40 billion, with annual funding of about $10 billion.

The venture will more than double Countrywide's geographic ``footprint'' and contribute significant earnings growth for both companies, according to Stanford Kurland, senior managing director and chief operating officer for Countrywide Credit Industries.

``It marks a major step in the evolution of Countrywide,'' he said.

Each company will own half of the venture.

Kurland could not estimate how much the venture will add to either company's earnings. But the initial capitalization per partner for the venture should stay below $17 million.

The joint venture is expected to begin operation in the last half of the year.

The move is further evidence of Countrywide's willingness to innovate and diversify, O'Donnell said. Last year, for example, the company began offering a full range of insurance coverage to consumers.

The joint venture's prospects are ``enormously bright,'' O'Donnell said.

``They essentially invented the mortgage banking industry as we know it today,'' he said. ``They've always been an innovator - a well-managed innovator - and this is another example.''