Bank of America's Mortgage Head Rolls

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Bank of America (BAC) home loans president Barbara Desoer will retire this month, after receiving a lovely parting gift from a federal judge on Thursday.

Desoer has worked for Bank of America since 1977 and was most recently charged with the thankless task of "integration of the Home Loans business into Consumer Banking" in the wake of former CEO Ken Lewis's disastrous decision to buy Countrywide Financial in 2008.

Barbara Desoer

Desoer served in various business areas for Bank of America including, "senior leadership roles in Global Technology & Operations, Consumer Products, Marketing, Retail Banking, Commercial Lending and Risk Management."

The company's co-chief operating officer David Darnell said Desoer's leadership had been "essential through an economic cycle in which housing has been a central theme and, at the same time, positioning our mortgage business as part of the holistic customer strategy."

Desoer said that "the transition of Home Loans into Consumer Banking is complete and under the capable leadership of those who will successfully carry forward the strategy and demonstrate Bank of America's full capabilities to our customers."

Bank of America's shares have been hot, rising 34% year-to-date through Thursday's market close, despite analysts' earnings estimate cuts, following the company's continued efforts to shore up its regulatory capital by shedding assets, including profitable foreign credit card operations.

In what could be a very significant court decision, pointing the way to less overhang from the Countrywide acquisition, Bloomberg reported on Friday that U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer in Los Angeles threw out Allstate's (ALL) lawsuit against Bank of America over $700 million in mortgage-backed securities originally purchased from Countrywide.

The judge found that Allstate hadn't provided sufficient evidence that BAC had committed fraud by structuring the Countrywide acquisition so that nothing was left for Countrywide's creditors.

Bank of America's shares were up 5% in late afternoon trading, to $7.82.

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-- Written by Philip van Doorn in Jupiter, Fla.

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Philip W. van Doorn is a member of TheStreet's banking and finance team, commenting on industry and regulatory trends. He previously served as the senior analyst for TheStreet.com Ratings, responsible for assigning financial strength ratings to banks and savings and loan institutions. Mr. van Doorn previously served as a loan operations officer at Riverside National Bank in Fort Pierce, Fla., and as a credit analyst at the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, where he monitored banks in New York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico. Mr. van Doorn has additional experience in the mutual fund and computer software industries. He holds a bachelor of science in business administration from Long Island University.